State Funding of Political Parties: Why the Controversy?
The nature and modality of political party financing is possibly one of the most challenging aspects of the contemporary African political system. However, in Zambia, the problem of party funding seems more pronounced mainly due to lack of the institutionalisation of the legal party funding system and widespread poverty that exists in the country, which make people not only unable to make regular contributions to their political parties, but also particularly susceptible to bribery and corruption. Certainly, political party financing is very vital because money is needed to pay for logistics, publicity, cover campaign costs and day to day costs of running a party.
Ironically, political parties in Zambia, like in any other country in Africa experience a general problem of funding. Funding for the operations of these entities comes from different avenues, such as private sector, foreign friends, multinational corporations, or from government to government on bilateral bases. As Dr Neo Simutanyi puts it, most political parties outside the ruling party in Zambia depend on private funding, which constrains their operations mainly due to lack of resources for smooth operations. Besides depending on private funding, they engage in other miscellaneous resourceful ventures including membership card sales, individual and corporate donations and fundraising activities, such as braiis, dinners, golf tournaments, and sale of T-shirts, chitenge clothes with party slogans and mottos among others.
However, membership card sales and private donations are the largest source of party funding in Zambia. Membership card sales are however unreliable, not only because the membership dues are quite low (sometimes as low as K4000 or $1.0), but because often the funds are pocketed and not properly accounted for. In any case the amounts are so negligible as to make any meaningful contributions to a party’s operational budget.
According to Mphaisha, “it is important to note that private donations are the most significant in terms of meeting the direct costs of running and managing party affairs.” Senior party officials, such as the party president, vice and senior members of the executive routinely contribute to party coffers. Members of Parliament are also requested by their parties to contribute to the running costs of the parties. There are also donations from well-wishers. The problem with most, if not all private donations is that they are rarely publicly disclosed nor properly accounted for. The argument is that disclosing the identity of contributors will expose them to political intimidation, especially if they support the opposition or will compromise their integrity if they support both the incumbent party and the opposition.
Private funding in Zambia is rare because most citizens are not in employment. Thus fewer Zambians are able and willing to make regular contributions to party activities. This has left political parties at the mercy of few and powerful individuals. It is because of the narrow funding sources of political parties and the potential of being hijacked by powerful interests that some people have advocated for public funding of political parties.
Considering the costly nature of funding political parties, some quarters of society have proposed for state funding of these entities from government coffers. However, Van de Walle notes that such a move has caused endless debates in Ghana by opponents of state funding notion who have argued that if political parties rely on state funding, they will renege on their attempt to bond with civil society and their well wishers. In that case, the whole democratization exercise would be defeated. This means that such state funded political parties will be divorced from civil society and the electorate. It is also argued that opposition parties will be less interested in representing and fulfilling the needs of the citizenry and there will be a reduced passion for the opposition parties to actively be involved in the democratic process.
Secondly anti-funding notion Ghanaians argue that when the state funds political parties, it will decrease the internal democratic processes in the parties. This is based on the view that when the political parties have sufficient funds from the state coffers, they would rather buy services they need for the survival and smooth operations of the party other than to seek the services from their own members, which hitherto would have increased a sense of belonging towards the party and what it stands for. The actual role of the opposition of acting as the watchdog and provider of checks and balances will be forfeited. All parties will operate in the capacity of the state-owned enterprises that depend on state subsidies for survival and operations, and as result they will fail to play the overseer role over government. In such an environment, things like transparency and accountability in leadership and allocation of resources will be compromised to the extent that the country’s development level will be too minimal to register economic sustainability. It is only a known fact that human beings pay allegiance to those who sustain their daily living or operations at any level of life, be it individual or entity, thus opposition parties will pay homage to the state rather than the citizens.
Further, Ghanaian tax-payers argue that funding political parties would lead to the proliferation of parties without actual action plans that would be of benefit to the citizenry. Ghanaians political commentator, Appiah Kusi Adomako argues that since not all parties in the early stages of a democratic state have survived, funding all parties in the early democratization process will invariably increase the unneeded lifespan of parties that have no business in the democracy dispensation and that are of no significant meaning to the electorate.
In short, the life of all the zombie parties will be prolonged at a cost to everyone and at a profit to none. Additionally, anti-funding campaigners like the Norwegian front-line campaigner organisation calls it “party-entrepreneurs” which would spring up from all places, and then the whole democratization process would become an open market for all sorts of “party entrepreneurs” who want to join the “business”. This would mean whoever fails to sustain a living outside politics would just come up with a political enterprise and use the existing law on funding political parties to get the funds and abuse it for personal gains.
As Appiah Kusi Adomako exemplifies, in the 1992 general elections, in Ghana, one of the parties that contested in the election was the National Independence Party (NIP) led by Kwabena Darko. This party since that election has gone into extinction, and if such a party had received state funding it would have had a prolonged life span on the democratic scene even when it had no ultimate offer to the people of Ghana. This kind of masquerading and politicking led many democratic policymakers and observers to conclude that state-funding is not just unproductive, but counter-unproductive and unbeneficial to the democratic process. The political analyst states that arguments by the pro-movement for state funding that it curbs corruption does not hold water because if political parties are still going to be free to raise private funds, then there still will be party contributors who will still demand for contracts whether or not there was state funding available. They must recoup their “investment” either way.
The other argument is that political parties are an integral part of democracy so they should be funded also when they fall short. But this would mean funding all entities under the umbrella of democracy, such as The Media, Non Government Organisations, civil society and even businesses and corporations which are also parts of the democratic process. The issue that becomes of contention is the source of funds to meet all those diverse avenues of democracy. It is also argued that workers at political party offices and their field officers are not state employees, so there is no need for the state pay their salaries. The other concern raised by anti-state party funding campaigners is on what happens to independent candidates when political parties are funded by the state since they are also part of the process. They concluded that if they are also funded, then it really becomes a whole market as was first stated.
Sartori states that although political parties in Britain are funded by contributions from their membership, individuals and organizations which share their political ideas or who stand to benefit from their activities take the leading role in their funding. Sartori further states that political parties and factions especially those in government, are lobbied vigorously by organizations, businesses and special interest groups such as trades unions for funds in turn for certain benefits if the parties won the elections. Money and gifts to a party by well-wishers are often offered as incentives. In the United Kingdom, it has been alleged that peerages (interest groups) are awarded to contracts to contribute party funds for the benefit of becoming members of the Upper House of Parliament and thus being in a position to participate in the legislative process.
The United Kingdom tried to put laws to prevent such corruption in future by making gifts from peerages and similar honours became a criminal act, but some benefactors attempted to circumvent this by cloaking their contributions as loans, giving rise to the 'Cash for Peerages' scandal. Such activities have given rise to demands that the scale of donations should be capped. As the costs of electioneering escalate, so the demands made on party funds increases.
In the similar exposé, Nelson Chamisa argues that the sponsoring of political parties has seen the formation of private companies from the funds that were meant to meet party affairs. Mr. Chamisa cites the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) of Zimbabwe under the Morgan Tsvangirai faction which is under the spotlight following the registration of a company, Movement for Democratic Change Limited, in Britain under unclear circumstances. This entails that personal motives has taken over the duty to serve the public and electorates. This implies that the funding would lead to the emergence of private companies whose interest will be accumulate profit for their owners who acquire the capital in the name of political parties.
Tax payers’ money will thus be used to enrich individuals at the expense of national development and the provision of public services that would better the lives of the people in the country which could be plummeting. Poverty levels in the country would increase as resources will be spent on politics rather than elevating lives of the citizenry. It is for these reasons that some people have argued that there was need to separate politics from economics so that while politicians’ politicking does not hamper national development as it is case at the moment.
A lot of time and resources are spent on political issues and processes that would have enhanced economic growth in the world at large. Political interests for example have diverted people’s attention or frustrated progress because they fear that if certain changes are made either in the law or in the political sphere, their influence on both economic and social matters would be reduced. Transparent International President (TIZ), Reuben Lifuka cites the diversion of the mode of enacting a new constitution by the government of the Republic of Zambia from Constituency Assembly (CA) to National Constitution Conference (NCC). Mr. Lifuka argues that a lot of funds and man-hours have been lost debating on the weaknesses of NCC instead of looking at real economic issues that needed both financial and human resources attention like the influx of street children and unemployment, among others.
The TIZ president said political parties have not contributed positively to the debate as they have kept on changing positions depending on the kind of favour they need at a given time. “When it is time for a by-election or any event that called for the participation of electorates like voting, politicians spoke the language of the electorates or advocates of change for them to gain favour from the public,” Mr Lifuka added. “They have swung from one end of the pendulum to the other based on the where the winds of self aggrandizement push them.” This means if political parties were to be funded, more parties would be formed without any programme that adds value to people’s lives.
Mr Lifuka argued that what has attracted most politicians into the NCC debate was the fact the most of the clauses in the Act empowers the political sphere as they are the majority in terms of representative openings. “Being that most of the decisions during the deliberations will be reached at through the majority vote, politicians know it will be to their advantage as they all will be in their favour,” said the TIZ president. Mr Lifuka argued that if anything, there was need to reduce the number of political parties to avoid the split of votes and confusing electorates with too many views on national matters which has not been healthy to progress in many issues of life.
Mr Lifuka also argues that there has been serious theft of professionals from the economy into the political sphere in world over. “Politics steal the much needed human resources from key economic avenues by providing them with attractive salaries and other incentives thus leaving big gaps in the economy that are difficult to fill especially in scenarios where the size of the skilled workforce is very small,” he said. This brain drain has been the biggest vice in areas like education and health.
For example, lecturers and medical doctors have been given senior positions in government leaving serious human resource shortfalls in key developmental area in the economy. And funding political parties may force many professionals to quit their professionals and venture into areas where they can easily get capital to start private companies. This would cause serious economic chaos in Zambia where wages for most workers are very poor. They would rash into avenues that offer better life the easy way. The economies would suffer and poverty levels would worsen.
This can be worse in situations where the law is slackened and the legal system is corrupted because those who abuse or misuse funds meant for political parties would go scout free. Mr Lifuka argues that in countries like Zambia where the law is silent on political corruption, funding political parties will be perpetuating gross corruption or embezzlement. “It is just unworthy trying,” Mr Lifuka concluded.
In countries where funding National Budgets is already a very big problem, diverting resources to the funding of political parties would ‘milk’ the budget a lot of funds. Politicians are politicians regardless of their size in number, in fact, the less the better because that will save people the saturation of their listening ability to diverse political rhetoric. It is better resources are spent on developmental programmes than on politicking. Parties with funding problems can as well close up and join those that are functional.
In the final analysis, it is clear that funding political parties has been done for personal gain rather than serving the electorates. Sponsors of these entities have done so to gain entry into a particular country’s economic spheres to extract its natural resources. Initiators’ selfishness has always led to the use of force to obtain what they need as the way of paying back. Tax payers’ money cannot be left for abuse by the few individuals at the expense of national development and the suffering majority from severe hunger and extreme poverty affliction.
The nature and modality of political party financing is possibly one of the most challenging aspects of the contemporary African political system. However, in Zambia, the problem of party funding seems more pronounced mainly due to lack of the institutionalisation of the legal party funding system and widespread poverty that exists in the country, which make people not only unable to make regular contributions to their political parties, but also particularly susceptible to bribery and corruption. Certainly, political party financing is very vital because money is needed to pay for logistics, publicity, cover campaign costs and day to day costs of running a party.
Ironically, political parties in Zambia, like in any other country in Africa experience a general problem of funding. Funding for the operations of these entities comes from different avenues, such as private sector, foreign friends, multinational corporations, or from government to government on bilateral bases. As Dr Neo Simutanyi puts it, most political parties outside the ruling party in Zambia depend on private funding, which constrains their operations mainly due to lack of resources for smooth operations. Besides depending on private funding, they engage in other miscellaneous resourceful ventures including membership card sales, individual and corporate donations and fundraising activities, such as braiis, dinners, golf tournaments, and sale of T-shirts, chitenge clothes with party slogans and mottos among others.
However, membership card sales and private donations are the largest source of party funding in Zambia. Membership card sales are however unreliable, not only because the membership dues are quite low (sometimes as low as K4000 or $1.0), but because often the funds are pocketed and not properly accounted for. In any case the amounts are so negligible as to make any meaningful contributions to a party’s operational budget.
According to Mphaisha, “it is important to note that private donations are the most significant in terms of meeting the direct costs of running and managing party affairs.” Senior party officials, such as the party president, vice and senior members of the executive routinely contribute to party coffers. Members of Parliament are also requested by their parties to contribute to the running costs of the parties. There are also donations from well-wishers. The problem with most, if not all private donations is that they are rarely publicly disclosed nor properly accounted for. The argument is that disclosing the identity of contributors will expose them to political intimidation, especially if they support the opposition or will compromise their integrity if they support both the incumbent party and the opposition.
Private funding in Zambia is rare because most citizens are not in employment. Thus fewer Zambians are able and willing to make regular contributions to party activities. This has left political parties at the mercy of few and powerful individuals. It is because of the narrow funding sources of political parties and the potential of being hijacked by powerful interests that some people have advocated for public funding of political parties.
Considering the costly nature of funding political parties, some quarters of society have proposed for state funding of these entities from government coffers. However, Van de Walle notes that such a move has caused endless debates in Ghana by opponents of state funding notion who have argued that if political parties rely on state funding, they will renege on their attempt to bond with civil society and their well wishers. In that case, the whole democratization exercise would be defeated. This means that such state funded political parties will be divorced from civil society and the electorate. It is also argued that opposition parties will be less interested in representing and fulfilling the needs of the citizenry and there will be a reduced passion for the opposition parties to actively be involved in the democratic process.
Secondly anti-funding notion Ghanaians argue that when the state funds political parties, it will decrease the internal democratic processes in the parties. This is based on the view that when the political parties have sufficient funds from the state coffers, they would rather buy services they need for the survival and smooth operations of the party other than to seek the services from their own members, which hitherto would have increased a sense of belonging towards the party and what it stands for. The actual role of the opposition of acting as the watchdog and provider of checks and balances will be forfeited. All parties will operate in the capacity of the state-owned enterprises that depend on state subsidies for survival and operations, and as result they will fail to play the overseer role over government. In such an environment, things like transparency and accountability in leadership and allocation of resources will be compromised to the extent that the country’s development level will be too minimal to register economic sustainability. It is only a known fact that human beings pay allegiance to those who sustain their daily living or operations at any level of life, be it individual or entity, thus opposition parties will pay homage to the state rather than the citizens.
Further, Ghanaian tax-payers argue that funding political parties would lead to the proliferation of parties without actual action plans that would be of benefit to the citizenry. Ghanaians political commentator, Appiah Kusi Adomako argues that since not all parties in the early stages of a democratic state have survived, funding all parties in the early democratization process will invariably increase the unneeded lifespan of parties that have no business in the democracy dispensation and that are of no significant meaning to the electorate.
In short, the life of all the zombie parties will be prolonged at a cost to everyone and at a profit to none. Additionally, anti-funding campaigners like the Norwegian front-line campaigner organisation calls it “party-entrepreneurs” which would spring up from all places, and then the whole democratization process would become an open market for all sorts of “party entrepreneurs” who want to join the “business”. This would mean whoever fails to sustain a living outside politics would just come up with a political enterprise and use the existing law on funding political parties to get the funds and abuse it for personal gains.
As Appiah Kusi Adomako exemplifies, in the 1992 general elections, in Ghana, one of the parties that contested in the election was the National Independence Party (NIP) led by Kwabena Darko. This party since that election has gone into extinction, and if such a party had received state funding it would have had a prolonged life span on the democratic scene even when it had no ultimate offer to the people of Ghana. This kind of masquerading and politicking led many democratic policymakers and observers to conclude that state-funding is not just unproductive, but counter-unproductive and unbeneficial to the democratic process. The political analyst states that arguments by the pro-movement for state funding that it curbs corruption does not hold water because if political parties are still going to be free to raise private funds, then there still will be party contributors who will still demand for contracts whether or not there was state funding available. They must recoup their “investment” either way.
The other argument is that political parties are an integral part of democracy so they should be funded also when they fall short. But this would mean funding all entities under the umbrella of democracy, such as The Media, Non Government Organisations, civil society and even businesses and corporations which are also parts of the democratic process. The issue that becomes of contention is the source of funds to meet all those diverse avenues of democracy. It is also argued that workers at political party offices and their field officers are not state employees, so there is no need for the state pay their salaries. The other concern raised by anti-state party funding campaigners is on what happens to independent candidates when political parties are funded by the state since they are also part of the process. They concluded that if they are also funded, then it really becomes a whole market as was first stated.
Sartori states that although political parties in Britain are funded by contributions from their membership, individuals and organizations which share their political ideas or who stand to benefit from their activities take the leading role in their funding. Sartori further states that political parties and factions especially those in government, are lobbied vigorously by organizations, businesses and special interest groups such as trades unions for funds in turn for certain benefits if the parties won the elections. Money and gifts to a party by well-wishers are often offered as incentives. In the United Kingdom, it has been alleged that peerages (interest groups) are awarded to contracts to contribute party funds for the benefit of becoming members of the Upper House of Parliament and thus being in a position to participate in the legislative process.
The United Kingdom tried to put laws to prevent such corruption in future by making gifts from peerages and similar honours became a criminal act, but some benefactors attempted to circumvent this by cloaking their contributions as loans, giving rise to the 'Cash for Peerages' scandal. Such activities have given rise to demands that the scale of donations should be capped. As the costs of electioneering escalate, so the demands made on party funds increases.
In the similar exposé, Nelson Chamisa argues that the sponsoring of political parties has seen the formation of private companies from the funds that were meant to meet party affairs. Mr. Chamisa cites the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) of Zimbabwe under the Morgan Tsvangirai faction which is under the spotlight following the registration of a company, Movement for Democratic Change Limited, in Britain under unclear circumstances. This entails that personal motives has taken over the duty to serve the public and electorates. This implies that the funding would lead to the emergence of private companies whose interest will be accumulate profit for their owners who acquire the capital in the name of political parties.
Tax payers’ money will thus be used to enrich individuals at the expense of national development and the provision of public services that would better the lives of the people in the country which could be plummeting. Poverty levels in the country would increase as resources will be spent on politics rather than elevating lives of the citizenry. It is for these reasons that some people have argued that there was need to separate politics from economics so that while politicians’ politicking does not hamper national development as it is case at the moment.
A lot of time and resources are spent on political issues and processes that would have enhanced economic growth in the world at large. Political interests for example have diverted people’s attention or frustrated progress because they fear that if certain changes are made either in the law or in the political sphere, their influence on both economic and social matters would be reduced. Transparent International President (TIZ), Reuben Lifuka cites the diversion of the mode of enacting a new constitution by the government of the Republic of Zambia from Constituency Assembly (CA) to National Constitution Conference (NCC). Mr. Lifuka argues that a lot of funds and man-hours have been lost debating on the weaknesses of NCC instead of looking at real economic issues that needed both financial and human resources attention like the influx of street children and unemployment, among others.
The TIZ president said political parties have not contributed positively to the debate as they have kept on changing positions depending on the kind of favour they need at a given time. “When it is time for a by-election or any event that called for the participation of electorates like voting, politicians spoke the language of the electorates or advocates of change for them to gain favour from the public,” Mr Lifuka added. “They have swung from one end of the pendulum to the other based on the where the winds of self aggrandizement push them.” This means if political parties were to be funded, more parties would be formed without any programme that adds value to people’s lives.
Mr Lifuka argued that what has attracted most politicians into the NCC debate was the fact the most of the clauses in the Act empowers the political sphere as they are the majority in terms of representative openings. “Being that most of the decisions during the deliberations will be reached at through the majority vote, politicians know it will be to their advantage as they all will be in their favour,” said the TIZ president. Mr Lifuka argued that if anything, there was need to reduce the number of political parties to avoid the split of votes and confusing electorates with too many views on national matters which has not been healthy to progress in many issues of life.
Mr Lifuka also argues that there has been serious theft of professionals from the economy into the political sphere in world over. “Politics steal the much needed human resources from key economic avenues by providing them with attractive salaries and other incentives thus leaving big gaps in the economy that are difficult to fill especially in scenarios where the size of the skilled workforce is very small,” he said. This brain drain has been the biggest vice in areas like education and health.
For example, lecturers and medical doctors have been given senior positions in government leaving serious human resource shortfalls in key developmental area in the economy. And funding political parties may force many professionals to quit their professionals and venture into areas where they can easily get capital to start private companies. This would cause serious economic chaos in Zambia where wages for most workers are very poor. They would rash into avenues that offer better life the easy way. The economies would suffer and poverty levels would worsen.
This can be worse in situations where the law is slackened and the legal system is corrupted because those who abuse or misuse funds meant for political parties would go scout free. Mr Lifuka argues that in countries like Zambia where the law is silent on political corruption, funding political parties will be perpetuating gross corruption or embezzlement. “It is just unworthy trying,” Mr Lifuka concluded.
In countries where funding National Budgets is already a very big problem, diverting resources to the funding of political parties would ‘milk’ the budget a lot of funds. Politicians are politicians regardless of their size in number, in fact, the less the better because that will save people the saturation of their listening ability to diverse political rhetoric. It is better resources are spent on developmental programmes than on politicking. Parties with funding problems can as well close up and join those that are functional.
In the final analysis, it is clear that funding political parties has been done for personal gain rather than serving the electorates. Sponsors of these entities have done so to gain entry into a particular country’s economic spheres to extract its natural resources. Initiators’ selfishness has always led to the use of force to obtain what they need as the way of paying back. Tax payers’ money cannot be left for abuse by the few individuals at the expense of national development and the suffering majority from severe hunger and extreme poverty affliction.
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