129
candidates and compete for their loyalty when in office, thus a more appropriate
recommendation is to support political party efforts to self-finance or resource their own
election efforts to a greater extent.
In the absence of party independence over their finances today, political parties can undertake
greater efforts to train candidates once they have been selected. Party members in strategy
sessions noted that often candidates do not want to be trained, or that party members have no
authority to insist upon it; this is a matter for party leadership. Support from international
funders in the form of international best practices may serve as an incentive.
The second effort, improving the relationship between members of parliament and their parties,
depends partly on how the member came to be elected, how long they have been in power, party
activities between elections, party discipline and the member’s attitude toward being associated
with a party. One international stakeholder relayed the following story:
We had tried at one point when we were doing these vote-counting forums that
we designed for the secretary general’s office to use, … he took the initiative to
start including the [names and identify their party] in the official minutes… and
there was a huge uproar because parties, members of parliament didn’t want to
be associated with those parties.
Another international stakeholder recalled the experience of her predecessor:
I think [predecessor] held a sort of meeting, and I forget which party it was, but
there were some members of parliament and then some party leaders, and so
[predecessor] had started the meeting, and one of them said, “Well, do you think
we could go around the room and introduce ourselves because I don’t know
everyone here?” I mean, that’s absurd. It’s party leadership and you’re national
representatives, and they didn’t know who one another were.
With parliamentary elections slated to take place in 2015, there is great opportunity to work
with political parties to prepare their candidates and, after the election, to support programs that
encourage collaboration between members of parliament and their parties. Parties especially
have an important role to play in supporting their members of parliament in the period between
elections.
