In April, IDEA and its regional partners organized regional workshops in Sri Lanka, South Africa and Slovakia for some 40 political parties worldwide to discuss party reform and learn from each other on their roles in democracy and democratization.
In Colombo, Sri Lanka, political parties and researchers from Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, India and Nepal met 9-11 April to discuss election candidates and how to renew party leadership. Women’s participation and possibilities in politics was a key issue, as well as dynasties’ influence on "their" parties. Other pressing issues included the growing political violence and risks for the personal safety of politicians and party activists. The worrying rollback of democracy in Nepal was a topic that resurfaced often throughout the workshop.
Rubina Irfan, President of the Pakistan Muslim League (Women wing), Balochistan (Member of Balochistan Assembly, at the IDEA workshop in Colombo.
On 4-5 April in Bratislava, Slovakia, researchers from Albania, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, Romania and Slovakia and politicians representing 11 political parties from the region discussed political stability and the stability of parties and party systems. They also addressed the lack of strategic and political management skills of party leaders and the lack of ideological frameworks, women’s participation in politics, coalition-building, and (re)gaining voters’ trust in political parties.
Political party representatives from Southern Africa (Angola, Botswana, Democratic Republic of Congo, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa and Zambia) met 14-15 April in Johannesburg, South Africa. They raised issues such as models and norms for fair public financing of political parties, access to media during election campaigns, the technical capacity of parties to do their job in communicating with members and the general public, and developing policies and selecting candidates. They also discussed the problematic leadership succession in political parties and the low representation of women.
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Abdalla Hamdok, head of IDEA´s Africa programme, Cassam Uteem, member of IDEA’s Board of directors and Denis Kadima, executive director of EISA, at the IDEA workshop in South Africa.
The April events were part of a series of dialogue workshops across the world for researchers and political party representatives to discuss the challenges that political parties face in their internal functioning and in legal and contextual frameworks.
For more information, contact
Maja Tjernström, assistant programme officer.
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