WHILE all political parties keep talking of their readiness to offer every possible sacrifice for the sake of having democracy in the country, I find it ironic that almost no political party practises democracy within its own rank and file.
As Anika Gauja writes in her book of comparative law, Political Parties and Elections: Legislating for Representative Democracy, some standard of internally democratic decision-making `should be required of political parties operating in modern representative democracies`. This is what we lack.
What our political parties need is organisation at grassroots level, establishment of intra-party institutions, and distribution of rights of their political associates.
Otherwise, workers will end up gropingin the dark astheyhave been doing for over seven decades. If such an internal democratic structure would somehow exist, leaders will be answerable to their followers. The current vacuum is a by-product of power consolidation in the hands of a few within each political party while idological workers remain deprived of even basic rights.
