ABSTRACT
Political parties are about power. In democracies, they represent the principal instrument through which segments of the population compete to secure control of elective institutions, and through them to exercise predominant influence over public policies. Everywhere, including in dictatorial regimes, rulers try to legitimize their domination via this same instrument. In recognition of the basic power role of political parties, V.O.Key once remarked that they ‘provide a good deal of the propulsion of the formal constitutional system’ (Key 1964:154).
