Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy

"Most of our political parties consist of their President and his own shadow", a saying which is often heard on the streets of Bamako, the capital of Mali. With over 100 registered political parties, most parties tend to be used as personal instruments by their leaders and are an easy vehicle for obtaining state funding. Even those without many supporters.

Programmatic differences between this large amount of parties are, obviously, rather small. Recently, policy development and the strengthening of party identity have been identified as a key priority within the NIMD Mali Programme by the main political parties.

From 26 to 27 September a group of 20 secretary-generals and national party official of the five main parliamentarian parties jointly discussed techniques to analyse their own party organisation and develop party specific strategic plans. A team of five Malian trainers, the local NIMD coordinator and Mr Dennis Hesseling (D66 party representative who participated on behalf of NIMD) gave a 2-day training session on strategic planning for these major parties. “It enabled parties to think about their own objectives and about strategies to reach their goals. During the training session, party members were challenged to formulate top priorities, strategies and expected results for their parties in the years to come,” says Hesseling.

Many participants highlighted the need to strengthen their identity as party as well as the need to develop and better communicate policy positions. Hesseling, “They themselves admitted that, if it was not for their individual leaders, they would all be members of the same party.”

Consulting the regional branches

Within the months to come, the main parties will consult their regional branches, their youth and women leagues and other stakeholders in order to discuss the main priorities for institutional strengthening. Strategies which can be put in place to enhance the policy capacity of the parties and strengthen their identity will receive specific attention.

Popular pressure on parties to start performing better augments more and more. This became very apparent during the last elections in April 2007, with a disastrous turnout of around 25%. Besides the need for individual parties to improve their performance, the parties will also jointly address a number of challenges of Malian democracy with support from NIMD.