The Dilemmas of Opposition Political Parties in Southern Africa
This paper focuses on the dilemmas of opposition political parties in Southern Africa as they grapple with the double roles of democratising state and society and attempting to capture state power in an environment that has been ideologically hostile to the existence of opposition political parties. The supremacy of the liberation parties in the region […]
The Politics of the 2005 Parliamentary Elections in Zimbabwe
The political and legal framework governing the 2005 parliamentary elections played a significant role in determining the freeness and fairness of the elections. The repressive legislation and partisan institutions put in place to govern the previous two elections were perpetuated, with new names, new personalities and invigorated allegiance to the ruling party. The continued use […]
Moods Of Bitterness: How Political Polarisation has Influenced Zimbabwean Elections
Since 2000 elections in Zimbabwe have been characterised by bitter struggles, mainly between the ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). In the 2000 parliamentary elections and the 2002 presidential elections these struggles became so violent that lives were lost on both sides, with the […]
An examination of the Role of the National Youth Service/Militia in Zimbabwe and its Effect on the Electoral Process, 2001-2005
What explains the re-emergence of the National Youth Service/Militia, launched in Zimbabwe in August 2001? This paper argues that, amid the intense political struggle between the ruling party and a largely worker- and urban-society-based political opposition, there was an urgent need to have in place a cheap and available institution that could be relied upon […]
Party Systems in the SADC Region: In Defence of the Dominant Party System
In the past ten years or so the process of democratisation in emerging democracies has continued to face numerous and persistent challenges. The most pertinent of these is the rapid movement towards one-party dominant political systems. This phenomenon has been observed by scholars who have administered a series of tests to determine the possibility of […]