Political Party

Political party is a group of people who come together to contest election and hold power in the government. They agree on some policies and programmes for the society with a view to promote the collective good. Since there can be different views on what is good for all, parties try to persuade people why their policies are better than others. They seek to implement these policies by winning popular support through elections.

Thus, parties reflect fundamental political divisions in a society. Parties are about a part of the society and thus involve partisanship.Thus a party is know by which part it stands for, which policies it supports and whose interests it upholds.A political party has three components:

1. The leaders,
2. The active member, and
3. The followers.

Political parties are one of the most visible institutions in a democracy.For most ordinary citizens, democracy is equal to political parties. If we travel to remote parts of our country and speak to the less educated citizens, we could come across people who may not know anything about our Constitution or about the nature of our government But chances are that they would know something about our political parties. At the same time this visibility does not mean popularity. Most people tend to be very critical of political parties. They tend to blame parties for all that is wrong with our democracy and our political life. Parties have become identified with social and political divisions.

Therefore, it is natural to ask- do we need political parties at all? About hundred years ago there were few countries of the world that had any political party. Now there are few that do not have parties.

Functions of Political Parties

What does a political party do? Basically, political parties fill political offices and exercise political power. Parties do so by performing a series of functions:

1. Parties contest elections. In most democracies, elections are fought mainly among the candidates put up by political parties.Parties select their candidates in different ways. In some countries, such as the USA, members and supporters of a party choose its candidates. Now more and more countries are following this method In other countries like India,top partyleaders choose candidates for contesting elections.
2. Parties put forward different policies and programmes and the voters choose from them. Each of us may have different opinions and views on what policies are suitable for the society. But no government can handle such a large variety of views. In a democracy, a large number of similar opinions have to be grouped together to provide a direction in which policies can be formulated by the governments. This is what the parties do. A party reduces a vast multitude of opinions into a few basic positions which it supports. A government is expected to base its policies on the line taken by the ruling party.
3. Parties play a decisive role in making laws for a country. Formally, laws are debated and passed in the legislature. But since most of the members belong to a party, they go by the direction of the party leadership, irrespective of their personal opinions.
4. Parties form and run governments. As we noted, the big policy decisions are taken by political executive that comes from the political parties. Parties recruit leaders, train them and then make them ministers to run the government in the way they want
5. Those parties that lose in the elections play the role of opposition to the parties in power, by voicing different views and criticizinggovernment for its failures or wrong policies. Opposition parties also mobilize opposition to the government.
6. Parties shape public opinion. They raise and highlight issues. Parties have lakhs of member and activists spread all over the country. Many of the pressure groups are the extensions of parties among different sections of society. Parties sometimes also launch movement for the resolution of problems faced by people. Often opinions in the society crystallize on the lines parties take.
7. Parties provide people access to government machinery and welfare schemes implemented by governments. For an ordinary citizen it is easy to approach a local party leader than a government officer. That is why they feel close to parties even when they do not fully trust them. Parties have to be responsive to people’s needs and demands. Otherwise people can reject those parties in the next elections.

Why We Need Political Parties?

1. This list of function in a sense answers the question asked above: we need political parties because they perform all these functions. But we still need to ask why modem democracies cannot exist without political parties. We can understand the necessity of political parties by imagining a situation without parties.
2. Every candidate in the elections will be making many promises to the people about any major policy change. The government may be formed but its utility will remain ever uncertain. Elected representatives will be accountable to their constituency for what they do in the locality. But no one will be responsible for how the country will be run.
3. We can also think about it by looking at the non-party based elections to the panchayats in many states. Although, the parties do not contest formally, it is generally noticed that the villages get split into more than one faction, each of which puts up a ‘panel’ of its candidates. This is exactly what the party does. That is the reason we find political parties in almost all countries are big or small old or new, developed or developing.
4. The rise of political parties is directly linked to the emergence of representative democracies. As we have seen, large societies need representative democracy. As societies became large and complex, they also needed some agency to gather different views on various issues and to present these to the government They needed some ways, to bring various representatives together so that a responsible government could be formed They needed a mechanism to support or restrain the government, make policies, justify or oppose them. Political parties fulfil these needs that every representative government has. We can say that parties are a necessary condition for a democracy.

How many parties should we have?

1. In a democracy any group of citizens is free to from a political party. In this formal sense, there are a large number of political parties in each country. More than 750 parties are registered with the Election Commission of India. But not all these parties are serious contenders in the elections. Usually only a handful of parties are effectively in the race to win elections and form the government So the question then is: how many major or effective parties are good for a democracy?
2. In some countries, only one party is allowed to control and run the government These are called one-party system. In China, only the Communist Party is allowed to rule. Although, legally speaking, people are free to form political parties, it does not happen because the electoral system does not permit free competition for power. We cannot consider one-party system as a good option because this is not a democratic option. Any democratic system must allow at lest two parties to compete in elections and provide a fair change for the competing parties to come to power.
3. In some countries, power usually changes between two main parties. Several other parties may exist, contest elections and win a few seats in the national legislatures. But only two main parties have a serious chance of winning majority of seats to form government. Such a party system is called two-party system. The United States of America and United Kingdom are examples of two-party system.
4. If several parties compete for power, and more than two parties have a reasonable chance of coming to power either on their own strength or in alliance with others, we call it a multi-party system. Thus in India, we have a multi-party system. In this system, the government is formed by various parties coming together in a coalition. Even several parties in a multi-party system join hands for the purpose of contesting elections and winning power. It is called an alliance or a front For example, in India there were three such major alliances in 2004 parliamentary elections -the National Democratic Alliance, the United Progressive Alliance and the Left Front The multi-party system often appears very messy and leads to political instability. At the same time, this system allows a variety of interests and opinions to enjoy political representation.
5. So, which of these is better? Perhaps the best answer to this very common question is that this is not a very good question. Party system is not something any country can choose. It evolves over a long time, depending on the nature of society, its social and regional divisions, its history of politics and its system of elections. These cannot be changed very quickly. Each country develops a party system that is conditioned by its special circumstances. For example, if India has evolved a multi-party system, it is because the social and geographical diversity in such a large country is not easily absorbed by two or even three parties. No system is ideal for all countries and all situations.

National political parties

1. Democracies that follow a federal system all over the work!tend to have two kinds of political parties: parties that are present in only one of the federal units and parties that are present in several or all units of the federation. This is the case in India as welL There are some countrywide parties, which are called ‘national parties’. These parties have units in various states. But by and large, all these units follow the same policies, programmes and strategy that is decided at the national level.
2. Every party in the country has to register with the Election Commission. While the Commission treats all parties equally, it offers some special facilities to large and established parties.Which are given a unique symbol -only the official candidates of that party can use that election symbol. Parties that get this privilege and some other special facilities are ‘recognized’ by the Election Commission for this purpose. That is why these parties are called, ‘recognized political parties’.The Election Commission has laid down detailed criteria of the proportion of votes and seats that a party must get in order to be a recognized party. A party that secures at lest six per cent of the total votes in an election to the Legislative, two seats is recognized as a State party. A party that secures at least six per cent of the total votes in Lok Sabha elections or Assembly elections in four States and wins at lest four seats in the Lok Sabha is recognized as a National party.
3. Over the last three decades, the number and strength of these parties has expanded This made the Parliament of India politically more and more diverse. No one national party is able to secure on its own a majority in Lok Sabha. As a result, the national parties are compelled to form alliance with State parties. Since 1996, nearly every one of the State parties has got an opportunity to be a part of one or the other national level coalition government.This has contributed to the strengthening of federalism and democracy in our country.

Challenges before political parties:

1. We have seen how crucial political parties are for the working of democracy. Since parties are the most visible face of democracy, it is natural that people blame parties for whatever is wrong with the working of democracy.All over the world people express strong dissatisfaction with the failure of political parties to perform their functions welL This is the case in our country too. Popular dissatisfaction and criticism has focused on four problem areas in the working of political parties. Political parties need to face and overcome these challenges in order to remain effective instruments of democracy.
2. The first challenge is lack of internal democracy within parties. All over the world there is a tendency in political parties towards the concentration of power in one or few leaders at the top. Parties do not hold organizational meeting, and do not conduct internal elections regularly. Ordinary members of the party do not get sufficient information on what happens inside the party. They do not have the means or the connections needed to influence the decisions.As a result the leaders assume greater power to make decisions in the name of the party.Since few leaders exercise paramount power in the party, those who disagree with the leadership find it difficult to continue in the party. More than loyalty to party principles and politics, personal loyalty to the leader becomes more important.
3. The second challenge of dynastic succession is related to the first one. Since most political parties do not practice open and transparent procedures for their functioning, there are very few ways for an ordinary worker to rise to the top in a party. Those who happen to be the leaders are in a position of unfair advantage to favour people close to them or even their family members. In many parties, the top positions are always controlled by members of one family. This is also bad for democracy, since people who do not have adequate experience or popular support come to occupy positions of power. This tendency is present in some measure all over the world, including in some of the older democracies.
4. The third challenge is about the growing role of money and muscle power in parties, especially during elections. Since parties are focused only on winning elections, they tend to use short cuts to win elections. They tend to nominate those candidates who have or can raise lots of money. Rich people and companies who give funds to the parties tend to have influence on the policies and decisions of the party. In some cases, parties support criminals who can win elections. Democrats all over the world are worried about the increasing role of rich people and big companies in democratic politics.
5. The fourth challenge is that very often parties do not seem to offer a meaningful choice to the voters. In order to offer meaningful choice, parties must be significantly different In recent years there has been a decline in the ideological differences among parties in most part of the world For example, the difference between the Labour Party and the Conservative Party in Britain is very little. They agree on more fundamental aspects but differ only in details on how policies are to be framed and implemented In our country too, the differences among all the major parties on the economic policies have reduced Those who want really different policies have no option available to them. Sometimes people cannot even elect very different leaders either, because the same set of leaders keep shifting form one party to another.

How can parties be reformed?

In order to face these challenges, political parties need to be reformed The question is: Are political parties willing, what has prevented them from reforming so far? If they are not willing, is it possible to force them to reform? Citizens all over the world face this question. In a democracy, the final decision is made by leaders who represent political parties. People can replace them, but only by other set party leaders. If all of them do not wish to reform, how can anyone force them to change?

Let us look at some of the recent efforts and suggestions in our country to reform political parties and its leaders:

1. The Constitution was amended to prevent elected MLAs and MPs from changing parties. This was done because many elected representatives were indulging in defection in order to become ministers or for cash rewards. Now the law says that if any MLA or MP changes parties, he or she will lose the seat in the legislature. This new law has helped bring defection down. At the same time has made any dissent even more difficult MPs and MLAs have to accept whatever the party leaders decide.
2. The Supreme Court passed an order to reduce the influence of money and criminals. Now, it is mandatory for every candidate who contests elections to file an affidavit giving details of his property and criminal cases pending against him.This information is now available to the public. But there is no system to check if the information given by the candidates is true. As yet we do not know if it has led to decline in the influence of the rich and to decline in the influence of the rich and the criminals.
3. The Election Commission passed an order making it necessary for political parties to hold their organizational elections and file their income tax returns. The parties have started doing so but sometimes it is mere formality. It is not clear if this step has led to greater internal democracy in political parties.

Suggestions made to reform political parties:

1. A law should be made to regulate the internal affairs of political parties. It should be made compulsory for political parties to maintain a register of its members to follow its own constitution, to have an independent. authority, to act as a judge in case of party disputes, to hold open election to the highest posts.
2. It should be made mandatory for political parties to give a minimum number of tickets, about one-third, to women candidates. Similarly, there should be a quota for women in the decision-making bodies of the party.
3. There should be state funding of elections. The government should give parties money to support their election expenses. This support could be given in kind: petrol paper, telephone etc. Or it could be given in cash on the basis of the votes secured by the party in the last election.

There are two other ways in which political parties can be reformed

1. One, people can put pressure on political parties.This can be done through petitions, publicity and agitations. Ordinary citizens, pressure groups and movement and the media can play an important role in this. If political parties feel that they would lose public support by not taking up reforms, they would become more serious about reforms.
2. Two, political parties can improve if those who want to join political parties are pro- reform. The quality of democracy depends on the degree of public participation. It is difficult to reform politics if ordinary citizens do not take part in it and simply criticize it from the outside. The problem of bad politics can be solved by more and better politics. But we must be very careful about legal solutions to political problems. Over-regulation of political parties can be counter-productive.This would force all parties to find ways to cheat the law. Besides, political parties will not agree to pass a law that people not like.

The End of the Blog: Political Parties

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Pressure groups

Social and political elites