We at Africa Elects try to make African politics more accessible to a non-specialist audience. For this purpose, we have chosen to classify political parties on a grid of ideologies. Below is a list of the labels we use and their definitions.
Ideologies are assigned with the help of researchers, journalists and V-Dem data on African political parties, based on parties’ manifestos and actions in government.
However, classifying all African parties into a single analysis grid is complex; the subjectivity it implies necessarily opens the door to debates. If you consider a party is mislabelled, please request a new labelling survey at contact@africaelects.com.
In the Africa Elects context, left-wing refers to socialist, democratic socialist and communist political parties. They favour significant interventions of the state in the economy to reduce socio-economic inequalities, emphasising the disadvantages of a privatised economy. In the long run, left-wing political parties want to expand democratic control of workers over the economy.
Most left-wing political parties favour Pan-Africanism or Pan-Arabism; some endorse softly nationalist policies. Although they can be socially conservative in some aspects, notably on queer rights, they usually advocate for feminist policies and separation of state and religion.
Examples of left-wing parties: Landless People’s Movement (Namibia), Economic Freedom Fighters (South Africa), Sudanese Communist Party (Sudan)
Main transnational organisations: African Left Networking Forum (ALNEF), International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties (IMCWP), World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY)
Bar colour: #990000
Centre-left
Centre-left, in the Africa Elects context, refers to social-democratic political parties. They favour selective state interventions in the economy to reduce socio-economic inequalities. For example, most centre-left parties support extensions of social security or free education.
These parties are, in most cases, socially liberal – they usually advocate for feminist policies and separation of state and religion. However, some of them are softly nationalist.
Examples of centre-left parties: African National Congress (South Africa), United Seychelles (Seychelles), Mouvement du Peuple pour le Progrès (Burkina Faso)
Main transnational organisations: Progressive Alliance, Socialist International, Former Liberation Movements of Southern Africa (FLMSA)
Bar colour: #FF0000
Centre
The centrist label refers to economically and socially moderate political parties. They favour soft government intervention in the economy, especially favouring economic sectors with high potential. Nevertheless, they don’t promote more radical measures such as nationalising key sectors of the economy or free health care.
Centrist parties generally favour the status quo or minor changes in social matters. They often attach great importance to the fight against corruption.
Examples of centrist parties: Sierra Leone People’s Party (Sierra Leone), All Progressives Congress (Nigeria), Parti Authenticité et Modernité (Morocco)
Main transnational organisations: N/A
Bar colour: #F0E78C
Centre-right
The “centre-right” label refers to economically liberal, moderately conservative movements.
These parties foster private sector control over the economy, sometimes limited by some regulations on oligarchic businesses. They want to keep health, social care, and education at least partially open to the private sector. Centre-right movements favour greater flexibilisation, deregulation, and low taxes. However, they sometimes want to implement customs barriers or aid policies in favour of national companies.
Centre-right parties are rather socially conservative. They often promote traditional gender values, oppose queer rights and rarely make reducing racial and ethnic inequalities a priority. They adopt mixed positions regarding the separation between religion and state.
Examples of centre-right parties: Democratic Unionist Party (Sudan), Tiako I Madagasikara (Madagascar), Rassemblement des houphouëtistes pour la démocratie et la paix (Côte d’Ivoire)
Main transnational organisations: International Democrat Union, Democrat Union of Africa
Bar colour: #3399FF
Right-wing
In the Africa Elects context, right-wing refers to nationalist parties firmly opposed to multiculturalism. They reject immigration and dual citizenship. They are, to different extents, socially conservative.
The economic policies of the right are diverse. Still, they are generally against the government controlling banks and public transport, emphasising the disadvantages of government interference and high taxes. Some right-wing parties are even anti-socialist or anti-communist. In foreign policy, right-wing parties favour that political power remains in the hands of the central government rather than in supranational, regional or local administrations. They strongly oppose both regionalist and federalist movements.
Examples of right-wing parties: Kwa Na Kwa (Central African Republic), Partido Democrático de Guinea Ecuatorial (Equatorial Guinea), Parti Voix du Peuple (Algeria)
Main transnational organisations: N/A
Bar colour: #000000
Animalist
The animalist label refers to parties whose main issue is increasing animals’ quality of life. Accordingly, their manifestos generally promote veganism and aim to prohibit all practices considered violent towards animals.
Example of animalist parties: Pessoas–Animais–Natureza (Madeira)
Main transnational organisation: Animal Politics EU
Bar colour: #006B00
Christian fundamentalist
Christian fundamentalist parties support replacing the dominant moral, symbolic and political order with one more compatible with Christian beliefs and morality. They support the establishment of formal ties between spiritual entities and the state.
Christian fundamentalist parties are socially highly conservative and authoritarian. They usually oppose economic liberalism.
Example of Christian fundamentalist party: Christian Democratic Voice (Namibia)
Main transnational organisations: N/A
Bar colour: #EE82EE
Conservative
The “conservative” label refers to parties that hold strongly socially conservative values, including support for traditional gender norms, opposition to feminist policies, or intense hostility to queer rights. They do not generally oppose formal or informal ties between religious entities and the state. However, unlike religious parties, they do not wish to radically increase religion’s place in the legal apparatus in the short term.
Conservative parties often favour that private enterprises control the economy rather than the government and promote private-sector innovation and development over state regulation. Some parties, such as the Tunisian Echaab, combine economically socialist and socially conservative views; we usually mention these cases by using both “left-wing” or “centre-left” and “conservative” labels to define them.
Examples of conservative parties: Union pour la République (Togo), Resistência Nacional Moçambicana (Mozambique), Malawi Congress Party (Malawi)
Main transnational organisations: N/A
Bar colour: #4259DB
Green
Green, in the Africa Elects context, refers to environmentalist political parties. They want to mitigate some effects of capitalism, such as the over-exploitation of natural resources, by selected government interventions in the economy. For instance, most favour more vigorous regulation of forest and marine resources exploitation. However, not all are in acceptance of a socialist economic policy.
Green political parties are socially liberal, which means they advocate for women’s reproductive rights, LGBTI+ rights, multiculturalism, and a separation of state and religion. Parties not meeting these criteria, such as the Tunisian Green Party for Progress, are generally excluded from international environmental organisations.
Examples of green parties: Movimento Social Democrata – Partido Verde de São Tomé e Príncipe (STP), Democratic Green Party of Rwanda (Rwanda)
Main transnational organisations: Global Greens, Federation of Green Parties of Africa
Bar colour: #009900
Islamist
Islamist parties support replacing the dominant moral, symbolic and political order with one more compatible with Islamist beliefs and morality. They support the establishment of formal ties between spiritual entities and the state.
Islamist parties are socially highly conservative and authoritarian. They usually oppose economic liberalism.
Examples of Islamist parties: Parti de l’Unité et du Rassemblement (Senegal), Popular Congress Party (Sudan), Al Karama (Tunisia)
Main transnational organisations: N/A
Bar colour: #4CCB00
Liberal
In the Africa Elects context, parties described as liberal combine economic liberalism with relative social progressivism.
They foster private sector control over the economy, sometimes limited by some regulations on oligarchic businesses. Liberals want to keep health, social care, and education at least partially open to the private sector. They favour greater flexibilisation, deregulation, and low taxes.
Unlike centre-right parties, parties labelled “liberal” are at least moderately progressive by their countries’ standards. They generally favour feminist policies, increased secularisation and more unrestrained movement of goods and people
Examples of liberal parties: United Party for National Development (Zambia), Kulmiye (Somaliland)
Main transnational organisations: Africa Liberal Network, Arab Liberal Federation, Al Hurriya Liberal Network, Liberal International
Bar colour: #FFD700
Libertarian
Libertarianism, in the Africa Elects context, refers to liberal parties that strongly oppose government intervention in the economy and the whole society. Instead, they believe society should regulate itself as much as possible through its own means – without the State.
Libertarian movements widely mobilise the lexical field of freedom. They support the right to bear arms and the legalisation of marijuana. However, some libertarian parties endorse conservative views on several topics, including queer rights and international migrations.
Example of libertarian parties: Libertarian Party of South Africa (South Africa)
Main transnational organisation: International Alliance of Libertarian Parties
Bar colour: #D4AE03
[Minority] interests
The “[Minority] interests” label refers to parties whose main issue is defending the interests of cultural or geographic minorities. They usually oppose centralism and are only active in the regions where the minority lives.
Most of these parties adhere to an ideological corpus. Therefore, we usually associate this label with another one that describes the party’s economic and social views.
Examples of parties supporting a minority’s interests: Gedeo People’s Democratic Organization (Ethiopia), Refondation pour une Action Globale (Mauritania)
Main transnational organisations: N/A
Bar colour: #AA00D3
Regionalist
The “regionalist” label refers to parties whose main issue is defending a subnational entity’s interests. They usually oppose centralism and are only active in the region they aim to represent.
Most regionalist parties adhere to an ideological corpus. Therefore, we usually associate this label with another one that describes the party’s economic and social views.
Examples of regionalist parties: Civic United Front (Tanzania/Zanzibar), Juntos Pelo Povo (Madeira)
Main transnational organisations: N/A
Bar colour: #AA00D3
*
*, in the Africa Elects context, refers to parties that do not fit into previous categories.
We can also use this label to qualify parties with no clear ideology, such as parties supporting syncretic policies or anti-corruption movements. Finally, we also use it for small parties for which we could not find the program or manifesto.
Examples of * parties: Congrès National pour la Liberté (Burundi), Ba’ath Party (Sudan)
Main transnational organisations: N/A
Bar colour: #999999
In addition, we explicitly avoid some terms in our reporting:
Administration
Ambiguous terminology: UK-centric term for subnational governments, US-centric word for the national government
Assembly
The word Parliament is less ambiguous and opaque to foreign linguistic backgrounds and different educational levels.
Authoritarian
Controversial terminology that doesn’t say much about a party’s ideology. It is also difficult to talk about a party’s authoritarianism when they’re not in power. Additionally, we rely on V-Dem works in almost all our posts, which is enough to mention whether a government is authoritarian or not.
Big tent
We attempt to label our parties with ideological labels rather than descriptions of their (perceived) size or (perceived) inclusion of different social groups.
Far-left/Far-right
Ambiguous and controversial terminology. “Left-wing” and “Right-wing” are enough.
Federal Election
Alternatively: “national parliament election (in federal states)”.
Nation
Ambiguous terminology: It can be interpreted as a “nation-state” (like Norway), as well as a group of people with a common language and culture (like the Scottish nation).
Nationalist
Ambiguous terminology: can be interpreted as progressive-separatist (for example, in the Cameronese context) or far-right (for instance, in the Ceuta context).
Populism
Ambiguous and biased terminology with too many different definitions.
Technocrat
Tautology: The term suggests an “expert or non-ideological” approach to policy areas exists. We at Africa Elects believe that there is no politics without doctrine.