Britain and United States’ influence on opposition politics in Africa: a case of Movement for Democratic Change in Zimbabwe.

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to analyse the influence of Britain and USA on opposition politics in Africa: A case of MDC in Zimbabwe. Literature reviewed from various sources showed that a number of opposition parties in Africa lack a strong financial base thus rely on foreign financial and technical funding. The Liberal Democratic and the Rational Choice Theories were employed as the theoretical frameworks to guide this study. The qualitative methodology was adopted to conduct the study while the research design was the case study. Questionnaires, reviews of secondary documents and interviews were used to collect information. The unit of study was the MDC, an opposition political party. The target population was party members from the MDC and ZANU PF. A sample of 60 members and key informants identified through purposive and snowballing sampling techniques were used. The research found out that financial sources of political parties are membership subscriptions, individual donations, state allocations, party investments and business sector. No foreign funding was evident. Technical support and capacity building programmes are provided to all political parties by international agencies and local NGOs funded indirectly by Britain and USA. The impact of capacity building programmes is strengthened parliamentary committees and improved level of understanding of legislative procedures. Based on research findings, the research concluded that there is no influence of opposition parties’ policies due to financial, technical and capacity building support provided by Britain and USA. Recommendations were that political parties should encourage payment of membership fees and individual donations and the amendment of the Political Parties Finance Act to allow a certain percentage of foreign funding. An area for further study would be a comparative analysis of opposition political parties’ electoral performance in Southern Africa.