In a democracy with a parliamentary system, governing power is transferred to a political party (or a number of them) who won the majority of votes cast in an open, free, and direct election process. It means that a political party is the only institution that can take control of the authority over a country. Therefore, only when the political party has democracy within itself, can they lead and govern the country with democratic values and principles. Only such countries see flourishing development and better livelihoods.
What then is the level of democracy within Mongolia’s political parties today?
Seeking answers to this question, the DeFacto Institute conducted a survey to measure the index of internal democracy in political parties (intra-party democracy index) and produced its first report. The findings paint a concerning picture about whether Mongolia’s political parties are in fact technically a political party as an institution and how maturely they have developed as institutions.
Survey on political parties and their maturity
The survey on perceptions and knowledge of corruption, which was completed by the Asia Foundation, has determined that Mongolia’s political parties have become the most corrupt organizations, leaving behind land, customs, and taxation agencies. This survey was conducted for the last 10 years, and political parties rose to the first rank in 2016 and were ranked second in 2016 and in 2017. Getting rid of corruption within political parties now requires external pressure from society and internal pressure from party members.
The search for a benchmark survey that shows maturity of political parties ended with the discovery of ‘The Intra-Party Democracy Index’ published by the Israel Democracy Institute. Having gone through the report, the DeFacto Institute contacted the Israeli institution, sought advice, and completed a survey among Mongolia’s political parties from February to May this year using similar methodology.
The main purpose of this survey lies in achieving more maturity in political parties as institutions and increasing the awareness and involvement of party members in doing so. When developing the index, the DeFacto Institute aimed to survey 28 political parties registered at the Supreme Court of Mongolia, but only succeeded in involving six of them. Chairpersons of 10 political parties said that they were unable to take part in the survey while 12 of them promised to get back to us, but soon stopped picking up the phone. We hereby thank those political parties who took part in the survey and provided us with the contact details of their members.
The survey was conducted through telephone as well as open conversations with experts. The potential pool of this survey was 535,324 persons who are members of six political parties registered at the Supreme Court. Having estimated the confidence level at 95 per cent and the margin of error at 5 per cent, a total of 384 persons were surveyed. Also, in order to explain and understand the underlying causes of the current circumstances of intra-party democracy and political party financing, 10 experts were engaged in an in-depth open dialogue. The intra-party democracy index was then assessed with four measurements in involvement, competition, transparency, and financing.
Survey results
The following two figures show the survey results.
Figure 1: Intra-party democracy index by measurement categories
Figure 2. Intra-party democracy overall index
‘Involvement’ measures how involved political party members are in the decision making process. The highest possible score is 20, and the average scored by the six political parties who participated in the survey was 10.25.
‘Competition’ measures how many people are competing for a position. In line with this, we looked at the process of how elections took place to make key appointments in the internal political party structure and how open the nomination process is. While one can score a maximum of 24 points in the index, the average was 16.28 among the six political parties.
‘Transparency’ measures how accessible the operational plan and reports are for political party members and how open the political party is with its operations to its members and the public. The highest possible score was 24, however the average came out at 9.26.
Financing is one of the most important factors in intra-party democracy. The source of financing has a direct impact on the operations and internal democracy of a political party. ‘Financing’ comprises the biggest part (32 points) of the index, and the average of the six political parties stood at 10.78.
The Israel Democracy Institute categorized political parties in three pools in their survey: 1) democratic parties (those who scored 61-100 points), 2) semi-democratic parties (30-60 points), and 3) parties without democracy (less than 30 points). If we apply the same criteria, all of the six political parties who took part in our survey are semi-democratic parties. In other words, the intra-party democracy of these six political parties are at similar, insufficient levels. If we look at the Israeli example, 5 out of 18 political parties who took part in the survey came out with more than 61 points, with their labour party scoring 86 points. You could also spot big differences between scores of different parties.
During the survey, it was discovered that only three (the Democratic Party, the Mongolian People’s Party, and the Green Party) of 28 registered parties have websites, and the rest did not have a specified place in social media. Some had an unconvincing online presence that had different names.
Conclusions
The publishing of the intra-party democracy index sheds light on political parties as an institution. In other words, the points scored in this survey will help political parties to assess their own performance and internal democracy. Also, this survey helps to build political education among party members, given that it was necessary to explain about the law on political parties, financing, and internal democracy to many respondents during the process. For instance, some respondents (political party members) said that they were not aware that their political party received funding from the public budget.
The qualitative survey showed the importance of improving the legal environment of political parties in Mongolia. Internal democracy is clearly a process that has to be institutionalized. For example, it was found that there is no single standard for political parties to publish financial reports, as a result of which many do it differently. Also, internal democracy is essential to making political party financing open and transparent. Perhaps internal democracy could be the most important key to criticisms around political parties not reporting on their financial activities, keeping their cash flow secret, and having become the source of Mongolia’s corruption. If political party members have better awareness and understanding, they would be able to exert pressure on their leadership.
The law on political parties states that political parties have to report on their financial activities each year, having it reviewed by an audit. However, not a single political party has published its report on their website today. The law on elections states in clause 40.6 that the General Election Commission (GEC) has to review campaign finances of political parties and report to the public within 45 days. However, the GEC has still not published the reports from the 2016 parliamentary election as well as the 2017 presidential election on their website.
If political parties have internal democracy where the decision making process is open, transparent, and accountable, people would have more trust in such institutions. Stronger trust is the foundation of strengthening democracy.
The DeFacto Institute is going to improve the survey and conduct it on an annual basis.
2018.06.27
Trans. by B.Amar