This article about a failure of democracy when open-fair-party competition fails. An interesting quote from T.J Pempel explains this situation in a brief strong comportment;

A democracy predicted on the ability to “throw the rascals out” is far less convincing when it exists only in the abstract than when it is backed up by periodic examples of rascals actually flying through the doors [1].

Democracy espouses the ability of the opposition parties to challenge the ruling government in order to install balance and order to the society. This includes some fundamental features of democracies like freedom of speech in political scene, freedom of the press for all parties to make coverage along with upholding the rule of law. Competition will push and encourage the parties to persuade voters by trying their very best to represent the general public. A fair competition urges politicians, national leaders, voters from every segment of the society to always be alert to any injustice and discriminative policies, to examine alternative approaches and ideologies as well as voicing their concerns in the electoral process. As a result, this will ensure the interests of all sects and groups being equally contested and weighed.

When there is little or almost no contest and rivalry for power, the dominant party will have no need to be as responsive to the needs of the people and country alike. It is a very simple equation. As long as there is party competition, the fear of losing the power will definitely give a valid reason for less power abuse.

A dominant party system is defined as one political party that can by its own capability to become the government, or in a form coalition government with other parties that are on the same page with each other. This kind of system sometimes perpetuates soft despotism in order to maintain power and often relies on various types of corruption at almost all level of society to undermine the possible opposition threats.

Despite all these common stereotypes, the system has brought peace and stability to many countries in the world. Their flexibility in mobilizing support and ensuring interest of almost all major groups has been integral in their success to sustain power. For a developing nation to survive, one needs a stable government that able to maintain in power for a period of time in order to establish a solid groundwork and a reliable foundation for continuous effort towards sustainable development.

Country like Japan for instance, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) has been in power since 1955 and has been keeping the momentum of good governance for so long until Japanese people found it hard to imagine a government without LDP as they have been so used to it [1]. Five other prominent dominant parties that would be a major interest would be Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in Mexico, the United Malays National Organization (UMNO) in Malaysia, the Kuomintang (KMT) in Taiwan, and the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa. The dominance of these parties has not pursued repression and agitation towards the public, nor the irresponsible maltreatment of power by the supremacy, but has created a disease that tends to spark reluctance of power dispersion [2].

Few questions remain. How does the support from the citizen justifies the substantial four decades of power for most of these dominant parties? What are the prospects of the opposition parties which are legally allowed to operate, to effectively balance the influence or even to seriously take power? How does the system substantiate the deeply established democratic tradition in contrast to the system, which is almost always authoritarian? Also, to what extent is the relevance of this system in facing the challenges of globalization?

Bibliographies

[1] Democracy without Competition in Japan, Opposition Failure in One-Party Dominant State, Ethan Scheiner.

[2] The Awkward Embrace, One Party Domination and Democracy, Hermann Giliomee and Charles Simkins.