The holding of primary elections in democratic societies is seen as an important aspect of actualising representative democracy. It is one way of allowing party members to have a final say on who should be their representatives at both national and local levels. Critical in this process is the intention to deliberately remove the determination of who represents the party from the party leadership and empower the party members with that responsibility. This is in part premised on the assumption that the members, in numbers, would know their candidates better and their choice would be closer to the clientele’s ultimate interest, representing the electorate beyond the party interest, once elected. Are there any other benefits of primary elections in modern democracies such as ours? While it is generally agreed that the value of primaries would differ across situations given the specific context of each electoral area (national or local), there are certain presumed benefits that are known to have the potential to enhance the democratic process, if they are utilised to guide primary elections.
Firstly, beyond just providing party members with the opportunity to determine their political representatives, primary elections also serve to enhance democratic engagement and participation for party members. This in turn should promote a spirit of trust and common alignment of political leadership to party ideologies and political programmes, assuming that these are well entrenched, understood and actually a chosen way of life by party members. In this regard the expectation is that amongst other considerations, party members will be guided by the individual’s understanding, belief and commitment to party policies and practices. This of course assumes that party members would ordinarily wish to always protect the party image as and when they choose their representatives and we do know that in practice this can be a tall order.
Secondly, and related to the above, the primary elections are supposed to give party members a choice to maintain quality representation by choosing the candidate who will not only present a true party image but a representative who will add value to leadership dictates in the larger national context. This is in line with the argument that looks at primary elections as a window and opportune moment for electorates to be advocates of democracy by electing candidates who will substantially increase the quality or performance of elected politicians. This requires that the values and essence of representative democracy must be a clear and indispensable feature of both local and national politics among party members. Only if party members attach some importance to these values would they seek to elect people who can further promote and entrench these as representatives of the electorates.
Thirdly, primary elections are supposed to provide party members with an opportunity to recall their non- performing incumbent representatives, especially in set ups like ours where electorates don’t have any legal avenue to recall representatives in between electoral periods. This includes removal of those representatives who abuse their political office by shirking or engaging in malfeasant behaviour or just general disregard for the core values of political representation. This would require that party members have a clear understanding of all ethical standards and requirements elected politicians are to abide by as public officials. At the core of this understanding, by party members, is the party traditions and culture with respect to upholding ethical behaviour by its leadership and the sanctions normally associated with these practices. If any party has a history of its leadership engaging in unethical behaviour or not taking stern actions against its members as and when they are deemed to have engaged in malfeasant or any unethical practices, it’s very unlikely that the general membership would be guided by the adherence to these ethical conduct requirements, when they go through their primary elections.
Lastly, primary elections are also valuable when parties have to find replacements or successors for retiring incumbents. These retiring incumbents would normally have been in political office, as representatives, for a considerable time and replacing them becomes an opportunity for creating new trends or legacies. It may however be an opportunity to further entrench old legacies depending on the inner party politics and change dimensions; hence often these retirees may have substantial influence on who is to replace them. The challenge again is how party dynamics have unfolded over the years and what current party and national dynamics drive the themes around aspiring candidate’s campaign strategies. It is also understood that primary elections ‘outcomes may be a function of other dynamics I have not discussed here, such as the so common factional interests within political parties, tribal inclinations, private interests that may dominate party politics and many others.
The above issues are in themselves crystalized or mirrored in the levels of inner party political dynamics and the extent to which the party’s political programmes, have been entrenched as the culture and dominant practices among the ordinary members, who do elect during primary elections.
The role of the party’s leadership and its position about candidates may also be a critical determinant of which candidate party members finally elect to represent them at both local and national level. The general view though is that primary elections can and should be used productively to entrench and promote desirable democratic practices by political parties and party members must be alive to the need to enrich and add substance to the quality and/or performance of elected officials. Let’s wait and see what drives our political parties’ primary elections.
