How many parties should we have? In a democracy any group of citizens is free to form a political party. In this formal sense, there are a large number of political parties in each country. More than parties are registered with the Election Commission of India.
But not all these parties are serious contenders in the elections. Usually only a handful of parties are effectively in the race to win elections and form the government. So the question is: how many major or effective parties are good for a democracy? In some countries, only one party is allowed to control and run the government.
These are called one-party systems. In Class IX, we noted that in China, only the Communist Party is allowed to : Activists of BJP Mahila Morcha demonstrate against hike in prices of onions and LPG in Visakhapatnam. : Minister distributes ` One lakh cheque to the families of hooch victims at their houses. : Activists of CPI (M), CPI, OGP and JD (S) take out a rally in Bhubaneswar to protest against POSCO, the Korean steel company for being permitted by the State Government to export iron ore from Orissa to feed steel plants in China and Korea.
© ( ) C V Subrahmanyan ( ) K Gopinathan ( ) A Chakrabarty, The Hindu rule. Although, legally speaking, people are free to form political parties, it does not happen because the electoral system does not permit free competition for power. We cannot consider one-party system as a good option because this is not a democratic option. Any democratic system must allow at least two parties to compete in elections and provide a fair chance for the competing parties to come to power.
In some countries, power usually changes between two main parties. Several other parties may exist, contest elections and win a few seats in the national legislatures. But only the two main parties have a serious chance of winning majority of seats to form government. Such a party system is called two-party system.
The United States of America and the