or new opponents. A high threshold for entitlement to receive State funding makes it extremely difficult for small but meaningful voices to be heard77. The Consultant is well aware that monitoring and enforcing the law relating to funding of political parties is no easy challenge. Political parties are bound to be innovative and creative, and will find ways to circumvent the provisions of the law. This should not however be an excuse for not monitoring compliance by political parties and enforcing the law. The law governing political parties financing must clear on what the rules are, political parties must be regularly reminded of such rules, there must be stiff penalties for breaches of the rules, strong and effective enforcement mechanisms should be put in place, and the rules must be enforced strictly, vigorously and impartially. Of course, care must be taken to ensure that the law is not used, especially by the governing party, as an excuse to unduly interfere with the operation of political parties under the guise of enforcing the law. All political parties and other stakeholders must be consulted and involved as may be appropriate to ensure fairness and transparency. Public funding of political parties cannot alone achieve the desired objective; political pluralism and genuine democracy. Political parties need to operate in a conducive operating and institutional environment, in order for them to ‘grow and develop into healthy and functional entities’78. While the appropriate regulation of political parties can contribute to the creation of such an environment, the control of political parties can be an unnecessary and indeed undesirable hindrance to the operation of political parties and to their growth. It is desirable, therefore, that laws such as AIPPA and POSA which restrict fundamental freedoms like association, assembly and expression must be reviewed. As we have noted above, it is also crucial to inculcate in the populace democratic values, such as tolerance, freedom of speech, judicial independence and impartiality, access to justice, respect for human rights and observance of the rule of law, in order to promote and consolidate democracy. The parties themselves must embrace intra-party and inter-party democratic values and norms, for these to translate to the national level. Where there is no intra-party democracy, the ruling party cannot translate democratic values at the national level. 77 See pp. 266-267 of the judgment. The Court held that in assessing whether the threshold is set too high, the court will take into account the practical effect of this funding system upon political parties in Zimbabwe. Any public funding regime that systematically excludes all but one or two political parties strongly suggests that the threshold is set too high. 78 Masunungure, op cit, p.5. 34