How long can a single party rule?

Politics without opposition is comparable to motion without friction. What does that mean for the ruling party in a country when it doesn't have a competent rival? Does that mean it will go on ruling until the end of the world? Does that mean it will never lose its grip on power? The answers to these questions are common sense: Nothing lasts forever and all good things eventually come to an end. 

Sooner or later, the change comes and the ruling party is either overthrown or diminished into irrelevance. The Muslim League was once the ruling party in this country, which has gone into oblivion. The Congress Party ruled India for 49 years until it suffered a massive defeat in 2014, currently wobbling on its foundation. The longest ruling party in the world as of 2008 was Paraguay's Colorado Party, which stayed in power for 61 years at a stretch before a sandal-wearing priest won the presidential election and knocked it out of its base.

The True Whig Party of Liberia is recorded as the founder of the first single-party state in the world. The opposition parties were never outlawed in that country, but this one party completely dominated Liberian politics from 1878 until 1980. There are examples of ruling parties or coalitions which are still in power. Malaysia is ruled by the world's longest-running coalition since 1957. People Action Party is ruling Singapore since it became an internally self-governing state within the Commonwealth in 1959. The Liberal Democratic Party in Japan has been continuously in power since its foundation in 1955. The Communist Party of Cuba is ruling the country since 1959. 

How that works is anybody's guess. A single political party forms the government, usually based on the existing constitution. All other parties are either outlawed or allowed to take only a limited and controlled participation in elections. A more refined variation of this single-party rule is called the dominant-party system. Unlike the single-party state, it allows democratic multiparty elections, but the existing practices or balance of political power effectively prevent the opposition from winning those elections.

Most countries having single party rule have a historical reason. When monarchic or imperial rules declined through the 1900s, the conquering political groups that overthrew colonial rulers and kings typically had power of their countries placed in their hands. These political parties either devised ways to usurp power or the system never allowed effective political opposition to strike root. Hardly familiar with the multiparty system, people in those countries harbour the desire that their political destiny will one day bring pluralism to fruition.

But reversing that desirable transformation can be tricky. When people are used to the multiparty system, it can be difficult to squeeze them into a single-party frame. An example of such backtracking is unknown, although in countries like Germany and Italy the multi-party system has produced political coagulation in the form of coalition governments. In other countries, single-party and multiparty systems have been disrupted by military interventions. Africa accounts for most of those disruptions, at least 70 African leaders deposed in nearly 100 coups or attempted coups in a quarter of a century.

It isn't about right and wrong that the multiparty system is more preferable than the single-party system. Until 2006, a modern welfare state like Sweden was ruled by one party for 65 of the previous 74 years. Yet people in every country aspire for the former form of government because it gives them the freedom of choice and the choice of freedom. The single-party governments often degenerate as they have a tendency to turn into one-person rule, unless leaders are altruistic, conscientious and enlightened.

That explains why a dominant party rule in Japan is different from that in Zimbabwe. While Japan had 14 different prime ministers since 1958, Robert Mugabe has single-handedly ruled Zimbabwe for 28 years. The checks and balances concentrating in one hand, the levers of power crush individual rights to strengthen the hands of depraved despots. North Korea's Kim Jong-un, Libya's Muammar Gaddafi or Iraq's Saddam Hussein are the poster boys of that deviant genre, when the government and the people in a country are organised to serve the whims of their undisputed ruler. 

A single-party rule has its benefits, such as quick decision making and ready implementation. Then it has its inherent risks in the rise of tyranny and subjugation of people. It also creates pockets of corruption like a minefield strewn with explosives. 

More than anything, it goes against the grain. If people haven't tasted freedom, they yearn for it. But those who have died for freedom won't live without it. Leaders wake up before their people, and the single-party rule is a stretch after that. Once the people have woken up, the genie may not go back in the bottle.

The writer is the Editor of the weekly First News and an opinion writer for The Daily Star. 
Email: badrul151@yahoo.com