Political Parties.............Part II

Q5. What is a National Party?

1. A party that secures at least six per cent of total votes in Lok Sabha elections or Assembly elections in four States and wins at least four seats in the Lok Sabha is recognised as a national party.

Q6. What is State Party?

1. A party that secures at least 6 per cent of the total votes in an election to the Legislative Assembly of a State and wins at least two seats is recognised as a State party.

Q7. Who is called a Partisan?

1. Partisan: A person who is strongly committed to a party,group or faction.Partisanship is marked by a tendency to take aside and inability to take a balanced view on an issue.

Q8.What is One Party System? Give an example.Mention one merit and demerit each of One Party System.

In some countries only one party is allowed to control and run the government. These are called one-party systems.
For example: in China only the Communist Party is allowed to rule.

1. Merit: When the party is good it makes policies and programmes in favour of people.
2. Demerit: One party system is nt a good option because this is not a democratic option. Any democratic system must allow at least two parties to compete in elections and provide a fair chance for the competing parties to come to power.

Q9. What do you mean by an alliance or a front? Explain with example.  

When several parties in a multi-party system join hands for the
purpose of contesting elections and winning power, it is called an alliance or a front. 
For example, in India there were three such major alliances in 2004 parliamentary elections– 

1. The National Democratic Alliance
2. The United Progressive Alliance 
3. The Left Front.

Q10.What are the various Challenges faced by political parties?

The various challenges faced by the political parties are:

Lack of internal democracy within parties.

1. Concentration of power in one or few leaders at the top. 
2. Parties do not keep membership registers. 
3. Do not hold organisational meetings. 
4. Do not conduct internal elections regularly.
5. Ordinary members of the party do not get sufficient information on what happens inside the party. 
6. They do not have the means or the connections needed to influence the decisions. 
7. As a result the leaders assume greater power to make decisions in the name of the party.Since one or few leaders exercise paramount power in the party, those who disagree with the leadership find it difficult to continue in the party. 
8. More than loyalty to party principles and policies, personal loyalty to the leader becomes more important.

Dynastic Succession  

1. In many parties, the top positions are always controlled by members of one family. This is unfair to other members of the party. 
2. This is also bad for democracy, since people who do not have adequate experience or popular support come to occupy positions of power.

Growing role of money and muscle power in parties

1. During the elections parties are focussed only on winning elections, and they tend to use short-cuts to win elections. 
2. They tend to nominate those candidates who have or can raise lots of money. 
3. Rich people and companies who give funds to the parties tend to have influence on the policies and decisions of the party. 
4. In some cases,parties support criminals who can win elections.

Do not offer a meaningful choice to the voters

1. Parties do not offer a meaningful choice to the voters. 
2. In order to offer meaningful choice, parties must be significantly different from on another. 
3. There has been a decline in the ideological differences among parties in most parts of the world. 
4. For example, the difference between the Labour Party and the Conservative Party in Britain is very little. 
5. They agree on more fundamental aspects but differonly in details on how policies are to be framed and implemented. 
6. In our country too, the differences among all the major parties on the economic policies have reduced. 
7. Those who want really different policies have no option available to them.
8. Sometimes people cannot even elect very different leaders either,because the same set of leaders keep shifting from one party to another.