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Abstract
The article presents a complete overview of existing regulations of party switching in Africa since the reintroduction of multiparty politics in the early 1990s. While most established democracies do not see any reason for sanctioning with legal restrictions the decision of members of parliament to change their party affiliation, in Africa many countries take a critical stance towards party switching. Frequent party switching is considered to weaken political parties, to hinder the institutionalisation of party systems, and to endanger the stability of government and the legitimacy of democracy. The article distinguishes legal regulations of party switching conceptually by what is prohibited and its enforcement. A preliminary analysis shows that anti-defection laws indeed matter for party system institutionalisation in Africa's emerging democracies.
Notes
1. There are several other labels for the phenomenon of party switching. In this article we will use the words defection, party switching and floor crossing interchangeably. In Anglophone Africa party switching is also known as ‘carpet-crossing’, while the Francophone countries call it ‘transhumance politique’.
2. Comparative studies about existing laws against party switching are still missing. Either they refer only to selected countries (Boumakani Citation2008; Matlosa and Shale Citation2007; Lembani Citation2007; Momba Citation2007), or cover the African continent in parts while focusing on the Commonwealth (Malhotra Citation2005). The compilation of Janda (2009) is in a similar way illustrating some hypotheses by using evidence from selected African cases.
3. In a similar way Southall (Citation2009) stresses the need for a prohibition of floor crossing, if Kenya should undertake an electoral reform towards a proportional representation system.
4. In Zambia almost 75% of the replies of a national survey supported the ban of party switching, and only 16% said party switching should be allowed (Erdmann Citation2007, 21).
5. The 5th Amendment Act (Act 17 of 1966), published on 30 April 1966, required a MP who resigned from the party that had supported him at the time of his election, at a time when that party was a parliamentary party, to vacate his seat at the expiration of the session. The amendment was published, tabled, debated, passed through all its stages, and given presidential assent in less than 48 hours (Okoth-Ogendo Citation1972,25).
6. This provision is now established in the National Assembly Act under article 145(3): ‘A member allocated a seat by proportional representation shall vacate the seat if the member – (a) resigns from the party under which he stood as a candidate for elections on the party list; or (b) crosses the floor.’
7. The Constitution Fourteenth Amendment Bill [B62-2008] prohibits the defection of members of either a National or a Provincial legislature. The Constitution Fifteenth Amendment Bill [B63-2008] bans crossing the floor for members of Municipal legislatures.
8. Nota bene, this occurred in a country with a PR electoral system.
9. See Civil Cause No. 3140 of 2001 (High Court) (Unreported).
10. See Civil Cause No. 1861 of 2003 (High Court) (Unreported).
11. In the Matter of the Question of the Crossing the Floor by Members of the National Assembly (Presidential Reference Appeal No 44 of 2006) [2007] MWSC 1 (15 June 2007), available at: http://www.saflii.org/mw/cases/MWSC/2007/1.html.
12. We have collected the data for all countries with regulations. Readers interested in this particular aspect should contact the authors for access to the database.
13. For lack of space we cannot document our coding exercise. Please contact the authors.
