Elections and Political Parties in Central & Eastern Europe - Research Paper Example

?Elections and Political Parties in Central & Eastern Europe College Introduction The modern values of democracy can only be properly protected and advanced through well-established political systems. Politics is a non-violent way of advocating for the rights and freedoms of individuals needed to ensure that each person gets the opportunity to express him/herself and achieve the objectives that he/she has set for him/her. Countries in Central and Eastern Europe have some of the most elaborate and well developed political systems in the world. These old democracies have citizens with a very high appreciation for the values of democracy1. However, the political systems adopted by various countries have huge variations in procedures and the values they emphasize upon. To demonstrate these differences, we have picked two countries; Germany and Ukraine to examine the differences between their political systems. Germany is one of the most interesting republics when studying political systems. During the cold war that lasted from 1950s to 1990, it was divided into two parts; East Germany under the socialist political system and west Germany under the capitalist system. Even its capital Berlin had a wall dividing it into east and west regions. However, after the end of cold war and reunification of Germany, it is now under a strong capitalist political system, being a multiparty democracy. During the times of the cold war, the political system was made of only three parties. However, nowadays, with the formation of various coalition parties, the voters have a wide choice of parties to choose from2. However, it resembles most of the major economies in that its parties can be divided into two groups based on the ideologies they adopt. The two groups are either center right or center left. Each of the groups is made up of a number of smaller parties and coalitions. It is very common to find coalition governments taking over power after elections in Germany. Besides the political parties, there are other major components of the German system of government. These components include the executive headed by the president. The president serves the country for a term of five years and can only lead for two terms. The second component is the lower house called the Budegstag. It has members representing voters and elected every 4 years. This house is headed by a chancellor elected from among the members. The third component is the upper house called Bundesrat. Unlike in most other countries, members of the German upper house are appointed from the cabinet rather than being elected by the voters. Each state appoints a representative to the upper house and has the liberty of recalling him/her whenever they wish. It is also worth noting that the representation of states in the upper house is not equal. Like in almost every other country, the German political system has a judiciary responsible for enforcing its laws. It is the main protector of the German constitution. Ukraine was one of the countries under the former USSR. It gained its independence after the collapse of the USSR in 1991. After this, it went through many political transformations into its current position. The Ukrainian parliament is the most powerful organ of governance that the country has. The parliament adopted a document called the declaration of state sovereignty. The declaration stated that the parliament was the only organ with the powers to speak on behalf of the state. Besides parliament, the presidency is the next most important component of the political system in Ukraine. The president has powers to appoint representatives to various international forums and people to represent the president in various occasions and functions. The president is elected in an election held every five years. A president is allowed two terms in office each five years long. Next to him is the prime minister responsible for dealing with various executive functions of the government. The prime minister also heads the council of ministers3. The country is divided into 24 oblasts (regions) each of which enjoys a certain level of autonomy from the central government. The political parties in Ukraine are a close resemblance to the political parties in the rest of Europe. Some of the political parties in the country are the green party, peasant democratic, Christian democratic, republican, democratic and the socialist parties. However, none of these parties have the numbers in terms of following that characterize parties in Germany. The cabinet is responsible for execution of the executive power in Ukraine. Its parliament has all the legislative powers while the judiciary is responsible for exercising all the powers of upholding the constitution4. The constitution outlines and safeguards the fundamental rights and freedoms of citizens in Ukraine. Logical argumentation While free elections create provisions for good governance, rule of law, independent media and methodical political alliances they cannot be attributed to as having created or destroyed a political set up of a given nation. Aspects however, can be attributed to as being greater contributors than others to the political situation of a country. This is because the election factors are a multifaceted phenomenon and not a single one can be the cause of damage in its entirety. In Ukraine for example, electoral contribution to authoritarianism over democracy leading to concentration of power to such as power political parties has been rampant over the years. It has created such influence that affects politics of power that influence further against democracy. This beats the purpose of electoral process, electoral laws and the political parties. It also misguides democracy into handing too much power to the central government while other groups and branches have little to administer5. Such imbalances in power distribution lead further to poor distribution of resources creating an economic crisis. Instead of bringing a nation together, authoritarianism divides the people of a country by wrong use of power. Thus voters are discouraged from making rational decisions by implications such as bandwagon and manipulation of power that keeps the same leaders in power through the years of governance and beyond transition. Such was popular in Germany during the Nazi reign and beyond the Nazi era. In both countries, the rule of law is insufficient and manipulated by politicians and political parties while yet using the law against its own structure. To think that all matters whether dictatorial or not are based on a country’s own law yet to oppress citizens of that nation whether on purpose or unintentionally. Too much power in various groups such as political parties is cause of such effects. Presidential power is especially a common phenomenon in the Ukraine government and that is the main cause of parliamentary failing. There is also division caused by multiparty system that has not in the past merged to form alliances for further watch on the presidential system. The parliament by itself feels helpless when making decrees since lack of presidential consent meant a nullified effort thus incentives are vital in encouraging coalition of parties. Thus a transition from presidential rule to parliament-presidential rule is vital when imposed on the Ukraine administration. Furthermore even the county’s election laws seem to compromise for a political adjustment. This is evident in their selection of the single member districts that does not fit the country’s structure to obtain a two party system. Such would benefit a situation where the government is strong and well established. It is evident that the election laws of Ukraine are as well insufficient since parliament fails to correct very conspicuous faults such as those of Kuchma’s reign. Such inefficiency only led to Kuchmainstating his powers the more. The Nazi party in Germany during the era of Hitler seemed to experience the same kind of inefficiency where the president gained more power from the law than it benefited the citizen. Germany like Ukraine also lacked a strong second part or alliance to challenge the Nazi government. The president therefore keeps bracing himself for more power which he obtains from poor election laws6. Initially, political parties were defined by the past and historical aspects of a country in Europe which mostly regarded the communist regimes and the impacts of totalitarianism on the country’s economic arena. Thus the current political situations and party organization of Germany and Ukraine as especially as a result of such existence of presidential governments of both Nazi party and Kuchma’s reigns in the past. Their party politics have also extended to modern day governments. Germany has however picked up to strengthening its opposition through such parties as the Green Party. The political arena has also been consistently parallel with the economic arena in these two countries. These two are linked close together by real factors such as resources and resource management in bid to create provision for the political dynamics such as elections. Though Germany has faced similar notions as those of Ukraine over the years of governance, its political structure is much stronger and established. The Nazi government had similar aspects of power imbalance as Ukraine yet which used totalitarian methods to obtain wealth and influence in neighboring Europe. Even when power was concentrated on the government and the president in particular, Germany would have a more easy fallback and efficiency on its electoral sector. Literature review Elections and political parties has been a major field of interest among Ukraine and Germany. Both countries are democratic states meaning that there has to be the existence of political parties to ensure that there is a democratic procedure for choosing leaders. Various literatures have been written to explore this area and various writers have also shown interest and written their opinions on the same topic7. Even though both countries show similarities in the manner in which they handle their elections and political parties, they are differences that are evident and that raise major questions as which among the two states has a democratic process of elections and manner of handling political parties8. To clarify this, a literature review of ten sources was done to find out the current and past researches that have been carried out to find out how political parties and elections in general are conducted in the two countries. The literature has to be no more than 10 years old and has to show a clear structure on the above topic. One very influential writer in Ukraine politics is Susan Sparrow. She has written dozens of articles on the political transformation of the people of Ukraine over the past two decades. Being a professor of political science, Susan has been in the forefront of transforming the manner in which European countries especially the eastern states of Europe conduct their elections. According to her, the elections of the central European states are less violent and fairer compared to those of the eastern states. In her article “political parties and democracy in theoretical and practical form”, she points out that the electoral laws of the Ukrainian people has had a lot of misunderstandings over the past years. While the country is ready to work with any political party, there is a threshold that each political party has to meet among its voters in order to qualify to contest for any elections in Ukraine. This is a failure on the political act to ensure that each party is given equal opportunities without any threshold to be met. In Germany however, there is no threshold that a political party can meet before it participates in any election. This therefore means that any party as long as it meets all the electoral qualification can be able to participate in the elections. According to Susan, Ukraine has a lot of restriction for a political party to succeed in its environment. She concludes that it is difficult to establish a political party in Ukraine as opposed to the easy way that political parties are established in Germany9. Funding of elections and political parties has been a major challenge for many upcoming democracies. According to Ernst Hillebrand, funding of elections in Germany has been a major point of concern over years10. The professor of economics and political science points out that the laws of Germany are clear that every political party has to be clear as to where and how they fund their elections. Every party that has a support of more than 0.5% in the past elections is entitled to state funding of their elections. The parties are given standard amounts of money that they have to spend in a proper manner without any misappropriation. However before any funding is made, the party should ensure that they do not exceed half the total amount of income that the party has. In case there is any other manner of financing the election, then there has to be a clear source of the money and such findings should not come from any state cooperation’s or institutions11. In Ukraine however, elections are financed by individual parties. According to Ingrid van Biezen, a professor of political science at the University of Birmingham, elections in Ukraine are mainly financed by the various persons vying for various positions in the government. They make various contributions to the parties which are then used by the party to fund their various activities during the election period. There are very few instances when the government chips in to finance some few political parties. However this is only possible with consent from the legislature which is a very rear occurrence. This clearly shows that the two countries are different in terms of the manner in which elections are funded. Ukraine still holds onto the old ways of financing elections believing that politics is a personal affair. However, Germany on the other hand believes that a politician is there to serve his/her own country and so should not waste their money in campaigns rather the state should do this for them. Even though people might argue against this, the clear picture is that it is a rule put in place to ensure that politicians are not oppressed in their need for positions. Ingrid van Biezen insists that the Ukrainian manner of funding elections is outdated and should be changed if they are to be fair with true leaders as there are true leaders who are not in the position to finance the expensive campaigns12. According to Jean, election observation is one of the major challenges that most European countries experience. Most of the central countries have no problems with any nation monitoring their elections as well as any international body. However, in the eastern parts of Europe, there are problems especially when other countries bring in their representatives to come and monitor elections. This is not however extended to international bodies. Loice in her article “Elections in Germany” maintains that the elections are very transparent and electronic. In case of any disputes, the Supreme Court is there to solve the issue within 14 days after the election. International bodies and the media are however not allowed into the courtroom to take any live proceedings as this could cause a lot of tension in people. Ukraine on the other hand has major issues when it comes to monitoring elections. Since its election has not been transparent and electronic over the past, there are changes that are coming underway to ensure that there is transparency in all that is happening and that a legal process is followed in case of disputes. From the literature reviewed, it is evident and clear to point out that Germany has a more democratic process of electing leaders as opposed to Ukraine. The electoral rules of parties in Ukraine are very strict and this restricts the freedom of various political parties in participating in elections freely and fairly. For Ukraine to be able to get to the level that Germany currently sits, they need to change some of their laws, this however does not mean that the electoral process in Germany is flawless, there are lots that needs to be changed especially the manner in which political parties are funded13. Conclusion From the above information, it is evident that elections and political parties are handled in a different manner in the two countries. Ukraine is very conservative in its electoral process. However this is fast changing with the intervention of various national and international agencies that have tried to change the democratic relationship that the country has had in the past. It is also evident that strong relationships with various countries have ensured that the country adopts new laws and rules that help guide it in its electoral process. Germany on the other hand has had a lot of transformation of its electoral processes and is currently enjoying a very democratic electoral process that is characterized by mature political parties as well as an electronic mode of voting that is of high value and integrity. These two countries however give the difference that exists between East and central European states. Bibliography Almond, Gabriel A. 2006. European politics today. New York: Longman Comparative European politics. 2003. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England: Palgrave Macmillan. Morlino, Leonardo, and Wojciech Sadurski. 2010. 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