BY LANGAT MATHEW
Ideally, anti-defection laws are temporary measures to consolidate a chaotic party system, but who are we kidding? Ours is a semi democratic system where parties are merely temporary electoral and legislative alliances designed to maximize the election chances of individual politicians.
Established democracies value the freedom of individual parliamentary members/candidates to switch parties. They regard switching parties as compatible with democratic values and see anti-defection laws as infringements on political freedoms. It may help to learn from democratic nations like New-Zealand and South Africa who once had but abandoned such laws.
In a political system that is still struggling to mold credence and credibility in their elections, it is a step in an uncertain direction to restrain candidates from being ideologically (or otherwise) at variance with their parties.
Since multy-party democracy, the lack of political consistency and unbridled party-switching by politicians understandably has reinforced the notion among voters that parties are neither robust nor meaningfully differentiated. Little to say of the regional (tribal?) brand in each political party.
Our fragmented parties operating in a corrupt and personalistic political system has very little commitment to political values and democratic virtues. Will they shelve their greed( for power) for the need of a virtuous democratic system? Maybe. Maybe not, but with the passing of the party hopping bill; the chicken will surely come home to roost. In 2017
Ideally, anti-defection laws are temporary measures to consolidate a chaotic party system, but who are we kidding? Ours is a semi democratic system where parties are merely temporary electoral and legislative alliances designed to maximize the election chances of individual politicians.
Established democracies value the freedom of individual parliamentary members/candidates to switch parties. They regard switching parties as compatible with democratic values and see anti-defection laws as infringements on political freedoms. It may help to learn from democratic nations like New-Zealand and South Africa who once had but abandoned such laws.
In a political system that is still struggling to mold credence and credibility in their elections, it is a step in an uncertain direction to restrain candidates from being ideologically (or otherwise) at variance with their parties.
Since multy-party democracy, the lack of political consistency and unbridled party-switching by politicians understandably has reinforced the notion among voters that parties are neither robust nor meaningfully differentiated. Little to say of the regional (tribal?) brand in each political party.
Our fragmented parties operating in a corrupt and personalistic political system has very little commitment to political values and democratic virtues. Will they shelve their greed( for power) for the need of a virtuous democratic system? Maybe. Maybe not, but with the passing of the party hopping bill; the chicken will surely come home to roost. In 2017
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