The Causes and Consequences of Manipulation of Party Primaries

• In Event: Democracy, Representation, and Elite Recruitment in Africa

Abstract

Party primaries are becoming commonplace in non-institutionalized African party organization. At first glance, primaries may appear a sign of institutionalization, a breach with centralized personalization, and a mechanism for enhanced intra-party democracy. However, we argue that such primaries are an attractive institution for shallow party organizations, where local elite defection is likely due to both vertical conflict between national and local elites and horizontal conflict between incumbent and insurgent local elites. Nevertheless, studying the case of Malawi we show that both local and national elites frequently manipulate primaries, particularly in party strongholds. Such manipulation distorts the conflict mitigating function of primaries and increases the risk of local elite defection. Our argument is supported by data from the Malawi Observation of Party Primaries (MOPP) project, the first systematic observation of African party primaries. In the paper, we present data from the three major Malawian parties in the 2019 Malawi election in 100 randomly selected constituencies. The findings have important implications for our understanding of political competition and party politics in contexts of low party-institutionalization.

Author

• Merete Bech Seeberg, Department of Political Science, Aarhus University