Political Stability and Peace through Party Engineering: The Case of Lesotho

ABSTRACT

Comparative scholarship suggests that sustainable democracy and conflict management are dependent on the existence of well-functioning political parties and institutionalized party systems. Surprisingly little attention has been given to how to strengthen parties by institutional means. Drawing on Lesotho, this article will discuss two different approaches of political party engineering: electoral system reform and banning party switching in parliament. Since reintroduction of multiparty politics, elections in Lesotho were marked by post-election conflict and violence. Following violent clashes after the elections in 1998 Lesotho adopted a Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) electoral system to deal with electoral conflicts. The article argues that the introduction of Africa's first MMP system produced an inclusive parliament that mitigates violent conflict and the simultaneous introduction of a regulation of party switching was useful in preventing party system instability and could set an example for democracy building in other post-conflict societies in Africa.

ORCID

Martin Goeke http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1026-8716

Notes

1. For further details on party ban provisions see Bogaards, Basedau, and Hartmann (2010) and Moroff (2010).

2. Several papers deal with aspects of electoral system design (Bogaards 2000, 2003; Mozaffar and Vengroff 2002). For an overview of electoral reforms in Africa see Hartmann (2007).

3. Sartori mentions as examples the experiences in Japan and India where frequent party switching has led to an increase of unstable parties. He claims that the impediments of a regulation against part switching in India can be a lesson for other countries with high rates of defections like Brazil and the (at that time) young democracies in Eastern Europe, where he expected fluid parties during their democratization process.

4. In established democracies there are only a few instances where party switching is forbidden by law (e.g. Israel or Portugal), but — if at all — parties try to establish norms of behavior for cases that politicians want to change their affiliation by party statues.

5. In 1992, only 9 countries had any form of an anti-defection law. At the end of 2011 out of 47 investigated African countries by Goeke and Hartmann (2011), 30 had adopted a regulation of party switching. This means that there are far more regulations of party switching in Africa than in other world regions.

6. For detailed analysis of this conflict see Makoa (1996), Matlosa (1995) and Mothibe (1998). In 1997 Moshoeshoe II died in a car accident and Letsie III became king again.

7. The BNP was the strongest opposition party with 24.8% of the votes. Out of the nine other participating parties only the MFP exceeded more than one percent of the votes. For detailed election results see Engel (1999).

8. There were 150 international observers from all over the world who were stationed at every polling station or were used as roving observers. The largest contingent of the UN observer mission was sent from Ireland, followed by other European countries. Representatives of SADC, which were coordinated by EISA and OAU were also based in Lesotho during the elections. After the elections all declared that the outcome of the elections respected the will of the electorate, even there was disagreement about the use of the words ‘free and fair ’ (Rule 2000, 271f.).

9. The MMP system is a hybrid system that may provide ‘the best of both worlds’ (Shugart and Wattenberg 2003, 24) by combining a strong representative-constituent link with a high degree of proportionality. The members elected on the party lists for contesting the 40 compensatory seats will be allocated to reflect the share of the national vote and make the results more proportional. For a concise explanation of the MMP system see Shugart and Wattenberg (2003).

10. An expulsion from the party will not lead to a loss of the parliamentary seat for compensatory seat members. But it is also not allowed to resign from the party and sit as an Independent in parliament. In the case that a MP will lose his or her seat, the first not elected member on the party list will fill the vacancy. See Articles 145(3) and 146A of the National Assembly Elections (Amendment) Act, 2001.

11. Eight more parties succeed in getting into parliament and hold between one and five seats. One of them was the LPC that was not able to fulfill its own expectations. Although its leader Maope could win his constituency again under the label of his new party, his party only managed to receive 5.8% and five seats in the new parliament. For further details on the elections see Fox and Southall (2004).

12. The ABC won 17 seats, 10 came from the LWP. The BNP was able to win three compensatory seats. The Alliance of Congress Parties was able to win one constituency and got a compensatory seat. Five other small parties got one seat each. For details see Kapa (2008, 348).

13. The results of the election were as follows: DC (39.8%/48 seats), ABC (25.2%/30), LCD (21.9%/26), BNP (4.3%/5), PFD (2.0%/3), NIP (1.3%/2). Six other parties managed to win one seat with less than 1% of the votes.

14. The present coalition consists of the DC (47 seats), LCD (12), PFD (2), NIP (1), MFP (1), BCP (1) and LPC (1). The parties in the opposition are the two former government parties ABC (46) and BNP (7) and the new founded Reformed Congress of Lesotho (2). This party is a splinter of the LCD and was formed by members of the LCD who was against dissolving the coalition with the ABC and BNP.