The relevance of political parties

Overall, political parties are losing not only legitimacy, but also relevance and connection with the people as they increasingly turn on one another and away from the people.

ONCE in Africa there was a political proposal that for the nation to survive in unity the tribe must die. We here propose the death of the political party in Africa and we must begin by admitting that we are not the first ones to propose the death of the political parties in the Global South.

In a way, the Third Way in Zimbabwe, presumably to be led by some political thinkers has this idea as its mantra.

This article is motivated by the recent and ever intensifying debate predominantly in South Africa, but also elsewhere in the United States of America on whether Members of Parliament from the ruling African National Congress (ANC) must vote along party lines even if they would have voted otherwise, a phenomenon loosely termed “voting with your conscience”.

The practise of political parties voting along party lines is so entrenched, hence, the presence of the Chief Whip as a key office bearer in parliament. This, in a strong way abolishes the democratic vote from the conscience.

The political party can be traced to 1600 ancient Rome when politics was organised along two different interests, the Patricians representing noble families and the Plebeians, who represented the rich and the middle class. It is important to note that right from their formation, political parties served the interests of the influential (the rich, educated, middle class etc.) and not the poor or the nation. Based on this, we can, therefore, argue that political parties, if captured, were captured right from their inception since they were formed to serve the interests of society’s influential and well to do.

Here in Africa, most of the ruling political parties of today were born out of the various liberatory movements, which then coalesced into ruling political parties. These parties were led by black African radicals most of whom had drank deep in terms of colonial and European education, as radical as they were they had become black white men and women that had their nose up as competent knowers and thinkers.

With time, liberation based political parties such as ZANU-PF in Zimbabwe, the ANC in South Africa and Swapo in Namibia started facing competition from political parties formed after the end of apartheid and colonialism.

These include the Democratic Alliance (DA) in South Africa, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in Zimbabwe and the Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP) in Namibia. Liberation movements and parties have been naturally suspicious of these newcomers that are accused of sellout opportunism and historical inexperience.

Political parties serve six main functions: political opinion-making; selection and deployment of office bearers, loosely termed cadre deployment in South Africa; political socialisation and participation by linking citizens with the political system, also known as interest aggregation and articulation; exercising political power and finally legitimating the political system.

We ask the following questions as a way of determining the continued relevance of political parties as key stakeholders in politics. Are political parties still leading the process of political opinion-making, is cadre deployment still an acceptable norm? Can political socialisation and participation occur without political parties?

Are political parties still exercising political power or are now abusing it and thereby rendering the political system toxic? Are political parties still legitimising our political systems or they are now delegitimising them? These are stubborn questions that African political scientists and politicians should be asking and answering.

Of course, there are no easy answers, but what is apparent from posing the above questions is that political parties are no longer the leading political opinion makers, cadre deployment has long lost credibility as it has evolved to become a tool for factionalism, kleptocracy and plutocracy — and corruption at a mega scale. We can also argue that with the advent of social media, political socialisation and participation is now capable of happening outside the confines of the political party as an institution.

Overall, political parties are losing not only legitimacy, but also relevance and connection with the people as they increasingly turn on one another and away from the people.

A significant amount of policy aggregation is happening outside political parties and is mainly community driven.