In many countries – developed and developing, foreign funding of domestic electoral campaigns is viewed with a jaundiced eye and this has consequently been prohibited or severely restricted. In Africa, most opposition parties are formed by either trade union organisations or civic movements are these often require seed money. Foreign donations in various guises have become handy in this regard. Foreign donations are an even more lucrative source of party finance for incumbent parties. In Botswana, the giant South African Anglo- American Corporation, which has mining interests in the country, apparently dispenses its largesse to the ruling Democratic Party in Botswana, reportedly paying South African consultants to manage the party’s election campaign (Africa Confidential 40(21) 1999). Nigeria’s General Sani Abacha appeared to have used donations to political parties in power in other African countries to buy diplomatic support. In Ghana, it was widely believed that Abacha made a large donation to the election fund of Jerry John Rawlings’ National Democratic Congress (NDC) during the 1996 election campaign, although Rawlings denied in public that he or his party had received any such donation. It would appear that the Nigerian government continued where Abacha left off, making friends through donations to ruling parties in other African states. According to Africa Confidential, in February 1999 it “made a generous contribution to the ANC’s election fund” [Africa Confidential 40 (5) 1999:4]. The African National Congress (ANC), as is widely known, survived its epic struggle against the apartheid regime in South Africa largely through the financial and other support it received from organizations and governments around the world. In 1994, fighting its first election, the ANC was not short of money, and most of it would have come from abroad. Three years into its rule, according to Africa Confidential, it had to retrench 163 out of the 560 staff it employed, put its headquarters up for sale and sell its vehicles to staff (Africa Confidential 38(22) 1997). There are unconfirmed reports that former president Nelson Mandela capitalized on his reputation and stature to raise huge donations from leaders of foreign countries for the ANC’s 1999 election campaign. One survey of South Africa indicated that in 1999 parties expected between 50 and 80 per cent of their campaign funds to come from business and foreign donors (IDASA 1997). Analysts of African politics often have to take account of foreign backers. Thus, for instance, in the Niger presidential elections in October 1999 the Africa Confidential correspondent in Niamey reported that Yssoufou Mahamadou, the candidate of the Parti Nigérien de la Démocratie et du Socialisme (PNDS), was backed by France through the PNDS’s affiliation to the Socialist International and the candidate’s friendship with Guy Laberti, the African specialist of the ruling French Socialist Party [Africa Confidential 40(20) 1999:8]. He was also said to enjoy the backing of the rulers of Algeria, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Mali, Chad and Libya. The late President Eyadema of Togo was named as the foreign backer of Mahamadou’s main opponent, while the United States was linked with a third candidate. Whatever foreign backing in such context means in concrete terms, it has to be assumed that money is a large part of it. There have been persistent and widespread unconfirmed press reports about Colonel Muammar Ghadaffi’s generous financial support to many African political party leaders. But most publicized donations from foreign sources are far less defensible. The late “Tiny” Rowland of the Lonrho conglomerate was reportedly also a regular contributor to the funds of the ruling parties in the African countries where Lonrho did business (Bower 1993). An interesting dimension of ‘foreign’ funding involves donations from citizens living in the Diaspora are an important source of funding for political parties in Africa, particularly for opposition parties. In Ghana, political parties list “Ghanaian citizens living abroad” in their disclosure of sources of funds, and the presidential candidate of the main opposition party allegedly received USD 100 000 from its US branch for the 1996 elections (Gyimah-Boadi 2000). Such apparently small individual donations from party members and supporters would normally be counted favourably as an index of support for democracy, especially if the donations go to support opposition parties that face 14