Session 12: Political Parties.

Political parties are groups of people organized to acquire goals vital to the interest of members of public through acquisition and exercise of political power. They aim to achieve this by winning political office and this can be done by the process of elections.

A political party performs a wide range of functions and the most important among them is aggregation of interest.  As a political party is a group representing diverse interests of the society, it attempts to harmonize these interests within the society by bridging hostility among these groups with varying interest through reaching a consensus among as many groups as it possibly can.

Political parties also act as an organizational support for the government and the opposition. They are responsible for recruiting members, financing political activities during election campaigns and developing policies. This organizational support is crucial for stability and viability for the members of the party’s parliamentary members.

Moreover, it will be nearly impossible for modern democratic system to function without the presence of political parties. A democratic system requires organizations and institutions to represent the interest and will of the public and do this as authentically as possible. Therefore, such representations are carried out by political parties.

Thus it is hard to conceive the image of a modern representative democratic system without the presence of political parties as they not only articulate different interests, but also serve as a source of recruitment of political elite.