Comparing ethnic party regulation in East Africa

Since 1990 the banning of ethnic and other identity-based parties has become the norm in sub-Saharan Africa. This article focuses on three East-African countries - Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda - which opted for different ways of dealing with such parties. The analysis shows that the laws have actually been enforced by the responsible regulatory institutions. However, they have only marginally influenced the character of the political parties in the three countries: a comparison of regional voting patterns suggests that bans on particularistic parties have not ensured the emergence of aggregative parties with a national following in Tanzania and Uganda. In Kenya on the other hand, where such a ban has been absent until 2008, parties proved not to be more regionally based. In all three countries governing parties were clearly more nationalized than opposition parties, while the overall level of party nationalization is lower than in other world regions.