•
•
•
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important and decisive role to play in the electoral process as provided
under the constitution. It must be permissible, therefore, for the State to
make financial resources available not only for the elections
themselves but also for the political parties that sustain them16;
The need to reduce the advantage some parties might have by
receiving far greater financial, material and other support than others
and to ensure that no party with a potential to gain significant voter
support is prevented from doing so by funding constraints17;
To avoid reliance on foreign funding by political parties, which is in any
event prohibited in many countries;
To discourage political parties from resorting to unlawful means of
mobilising financial and other resources; and
To avoid over-reliance by political parties on corporations, wealthy
entrepreneurs and other individuals who may regard politics as
business and political parties as investments, the result being that
through their donations they end up ‘owning’ the parties or being ‘kingmakers’. This can very easily promote self interest, at the expense of
national interest, and thus engender corruption18.
Most of the above justifications for public funding of political parties were
found acceptable by the Supreme Court of Zimbabwe in 1997, in the case
of United Parties v Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs and
Others 1997 (2) ZLR 254 (SC). The Supreme Court said, with regard to
the question of public funding of political funding, that unhindered freedom
of political expression was essential to the proper functioning of a
democratic system. Political parties contending for ascendancy should not
be subject to legislative measures that limited their capacity to engage in
dialogue and communicate arguments and opinions to enable the
populace to make informed judgments as to how they should be
governed. Public funding of political parties was a vital element of sound
democracy both as an egalitarian measure and as a means of curbing the
dependency of political parties upon private interests. The system of
public funding had, however, to be respectful of pluralism and the
possibility of political change. The court noted with approval that it had
been recognized internationally that the regulation of public funding for
political parties, particularly as regards elections, had five goals, viz: (i) to
ensure equality of opportunity in a liberal democracy characterized by
inequalities in the distribution of wealth; (ii) to make enough money
available for competitive election campaigns to occur; (iii) to allow new
entrants, while not encouraging frivolous candidates or propping up
16
Masunungure, op cit, p.15.
Friedman, op cit, p. 4.
18
See Masunungure, op cit, p.10.
17
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