ABSTRACT
Elections have played a crucial role in advancing the growth and development of some democratic parties in post-communist eastern Europe, and pronounced a sentence of death on the political prospects or survival of those unsuccessful in their confrontation with the electorate. Yet other parties have presented at successive elections and maintained a limited if precarious existence on the margins of democratic parliaments and post-communist political life. Elections propel the leaders of some parties into positions of governmental responsibility, but consign others to political oblivion. Electoral success generally strengthens the commitment of supporters to their chosen party, whilst confronting the organization with the challenge of delivering on its commitments and moving it on from the abstract realm of promise and political aspiration to that of more practical government responsibility. The electoral contest thus provides parties with the prime opportunity to advance to a further phase of development and political growth, and lead some of them into the complex arena of responsible parliamentary action and towards further structural evolution. Some parties clearly cope with these challenges more successfully than others, and major aspects of the flux of early post-communist political life in eastern Europe have been clarified by a range of elections that have advanced the institutional careers of the chosen few parties represented in parliament and banished to the margins the unsuccessful many.
