African political parties are to blame for the slow growth of multi-party democracy on the continent, top Kenyan minister and ruling party official Raila Odinga said on Thursday night.
”All political parties — the ones in power as well as those in the opposition — have contributed to a fair share in undermining the democratisation process, Raila said in a paper delivered at a two-day regional conference on good governance and politics.
”Relations between government and opposition parties in Africa are often characterised by rancour, acrimony and outright hostility.
”Ruling parties often adopt a posture of crude majority, while the opposition takes the posture of obstruction,” said Odinga, Kenya’s energy minister and ruling Kenya African National Union (KANU) party secretary general.
Odinga also told the conference, which ends in the Tanzanian capital on Friday, that other factors inhibiting development of multiparty democracy in Africa included scarcity of resources, institutional weakness, and shaky internal democracy.
He said it was all too common in Africa to find young adults and women being marginalised outside the political mainstream.
Odinga, whose party — the National Democractic Party (NDP) — merged with the ruling KANU on March 18, said the major role of African opposition parties was to show there were alternatives to existing governments.
The conference, organised by the Eastern and Southern African Universities Research Programme (ESAURP), has attracted delegates from Botswana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe. – Sapa-AFP