Political parties can help deepen democracy, deliver credible elections

Political Scientists and other Social Science scholars agree that democracy, development, and good governance have a deep and functional relationship. They aver that democracy is a social foundation for political and economic development in any society in both developed and developing economies. They also believe that democracy is also the best tool for managing both social and economic conflicts that societies face across the globe. On the same breath, the two groups of professionals further observe that elections are central to the development of democracy and good governance.

Elections alone cannot guarantee development, but remain an important instrument through which diverse segments of society including the most vulnerable, elect rulers of their choice to govern and guide their development quest. Once elected, these individuals assume the authority to determine and shape national socio-economic policies and programs that should result in better standards of living for the electorate while also responding to the demands of economic globalization.

Elections are carried out through political parties which play a crucial role in the quest for democratic governance. And as a source of political philosophies, they also found and consolidate democratic systems.

Attempts to build stable democracy without viable and strong political parties founded on known social-political philosophies have failed in any countries where there have been such attempts. Similarly, where state machinery have attempted to thwart the development of political parties, the stability of such nations have always been shaken as citizens rise up to resist attempts to inveigle their freedom of association and subscription to certain schools of thought in the political discourse.

Political parties play a vital role in the marketplace of political ideologies, socio-political conflict management, the economics of national development and programs for addressing the needs of the citizens. They are major vehicles for the recruitment of political leadership, the structuring of electoral choice, and the framing of policy alternatives as well as setting up pro-people alternative governments. Parties are the principal players in electoral contests. To that extent, they are indispensable to democracy.

When fully developed and institutionally strengthened, political parties are chief vehicles that can help mediate between civil society and those who implement decisions in government and political administration. They mobilize voters to participate in an election, recruit political personnel, aggregate a plurality of interests into a reasonable number of policy options and transform those policy options into political decisions.

Politics require time-proof ideologies, philosophies, principles, ideas and values that set the goals and standards of political organization of a political party and for which its members aspire to subscribe to and champion. For instance, Kenya Africa National Union, our independence party that ruled Kenya for a record 24 years had as its philosophy, “Peace, Love and Unity”, The Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (CORD) on the other hand is committed to the realization of a Kenyan society founded on popular democracy and social justice, where all citizens enjoy equal political, economic and socio-cultural rights and live in harmony and unity. Other recent parties such as Orange Democratic Movement founded in 2005 as a movement to campaign against the Draft Constitution then had as its central call, “Chungwa Moja: Maisha Bora” and Jubilee Party founded in 2016 says, “Tuko Pamoja”. These are some of the issues that parties need to contend with when their leaders and founders are crafting the party as an institution and an organ for strengthening democracy and delivering the country from misrule and bad governance.

Parties in developed nations such as the Liberal Party of Canada, the Communist Party of China, and the Africa National Congress of South Africa (ANC) all have time-proven ideologies that have made them stand the test of time over the years. The Liberal Party of Canada is bound by the Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and is committed to the pursuit of equality of opportunity for all persons, to the enhancement of a unique and diverse cultural community, to the recognition that English and French are the official languages of Canada, and to the preservation of the Canadian identity in a global society.

The Communist Party of China (CPC) takes Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory and the important thought of ‘Three Represents’ as its guide to action and theoretical bases. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels co-founded the theory of the proletarian political party, in which they expounded the basic tenets of the Marxist theory of party building and laid the theoretical basis for building the proletarian party. In his practical work of leading the socialist revolution and construction in Russia, Lenin adhered to the basic tenets of the Marxist theory of party building and creatively solved a series of new problems arising in the building of the proletarian party. His foremost achievement was the creation of a preliminary theory for the building of the proletarian party in office, which constitutes the second monument of the Marxist theory of party building.

On the basis of the Marxist-Leninist theory of party building and China’s specific conditions, Mao Zedong established the theory for building a proletarian party in a semi-colonial, semi-feudal society constituted mainly of peasants and petty bourgeoisie. The most outstanding contributions Mao Zedong made to the Marxist theory of party building are: First, he placed great emphasis on the purpose of building the Party, which is to serve the people wholeheartedly; and second, he attached great importance to improving the Party’s style of work and insisted that the Party be built ideologically first. Mao Zedong’s theory of party building is the first historic leap off the Marxist theory of party building in China.

It is further held that politics require sound and vibrant social organizations that collect interests, aggregate, and communicate them to the political and governmental institutions. In this regard, parties with clear organizational structures, sound leadership and that are close to the citizens tends to be upbeat with their needs and thus affiliation with and to such parties becomes near automatic. Neither can we claim to be preparing for credible elections without equipping our parties to present to us leaders with impeccable belief in their party philosophy? Electoral stakeholders, like Elections Management Bodies (EMBs) should be keen to work with political parties in Kenya to design their philosophies, values, and principles that will then go a long way into influencing party politics and membership to political parties in Kenya.

The writer is the CEO of Right Elections®. Email: dboi@rightelections.org