leadership crises and decline of opposition parties in

consequence of basic democratic rights, such as freedom to associate and freedom of
expression, and as a necessary components of the idea of democracy as it is practiced in
matured world democracies. In Crotty’s view for example:
Democratic government is unlikely and may not be
possible in the absence of competitive political
parties…Orderly government; much less a democratic
polity cannot exist without some form of stabilized
political party representation.
And more recently Seymour Martin Lipset (2005) speaks of “the indispensability of
political parties”. An interest in the role of political parties is of course not only due to the
transition to multiparty democracies, but reflects a change in approach in political science
more generally.
The functions that it is hoped parties can perform can be grouped as follows:
(1) Representation: Political parties need to play a key role in organizing elections.
But beyond this they have a wider function of representation, not only in the sense
of standing for their members/constituents/sections of the public but helping to
articulate ad aggregate their interest (Scott Mainwaring.1995). As an extension of
this, Crotty (1993) talks about how, where civil society organizations are
relatively well developed, the party can assume the role of an additional
brokerage agent serving to inter-connect the mediating groups into larger and
more powerful electoral coalitions.
(2) Making government accountable: In consolidated democracies the political
leadership is held accountable for its actions. Accountability has many facets but
a common distinction is between vertical and horizontal accountability. Political
parties have a central role in both types. Regular elections are the formal
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