2.0. Justification for Public Funding of Political Parties It is generally accepted by proponents of public funding of political parties that it contributes to the enhancement of democracy. Masunungure points out that: … democracy does not come cheaply and therefore that in fact, state funding is needed for all political parties in counties with fragile democracies where the governing party has inexhaustible access to state resources that it routinely abuses to bolster its party activities and to campaign in elections against enfeebled opposition parties. Clearly, such a situation affects that democratic content and quality of elections11. He then quotes Fall as saying that the fairness of electoral processes and outcomes is, in turn, a major factor in the chances of successful consolidation of a fledgling democracy12. The fairness of electoral processes and consolidation of democracy can be achieved, inter alia, by public funding of political parties. Public funding of political parties contributes to the consolidation of democracy in the following ways, among others: • It creates relatively equal opportunities for political parties to set up their structures and run election campaigns; • It encourages political players in the country to “channel their ambitions through the democratic process rather than through undemocratic means”13; • Public funding of political parties promotes relatively equal strength for political parties, encourages competition and offers the populace genuine options to choose from. The resultant viability of political parties especially that of the opposition, reduces the extent to which the incumbent factor can be played by the ruling party to frustrate other parties14. The ruling party, with all possible financial advantage, would not find it easy to frustrate other parties since they would also be entitled to public funding15; • “If voting is a constitutional right, then the state must be compelled to subsidise the assertion of a constitutional right”. In other words, the holding of elections is a public function and political parties have an 11 Ibid, pp.16-17. Ibid. 13 Kumado, K., “Multi-Party Democracy and Political Financing – The Anglophone West Africa Experience”, p. 3, paper presented at the Sub-Regional Conference on Multi-Party Democracy and Political Parties Financing, 22-23 May, 1995, Accra, Ghana. See also Onuoha, op cit, p.13, and Friedman, op cit, p.4. The latter suggests that in the case of the first democratic elections in South Africa, public funding of political parties removed the basis for parties ‘which may have enjoyed the capacity to destabilize the post-election order’, like the Pan Africanist Congress, to claim that their tiny share of the vote was a consequence of funding constraints. 14 Kumado, op cit, pp. 3-4. 15 Onuoha, op cit, p.13. See also Masunungure, op cit, p.17. 12 7