February 4 - 9, 2007
Liberalism Needs Organization: CALD Holds
Workshop on Political Party Management
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| From left: Uri Party Research
Director Dong Ho Lee, FNF Manila Resident Representative Siegfried
Herzog, Publicus General Manager Malou Tiquia, and NIPS Executive
Director Lambert Ramirez |
One of
Council of Asian Liberals and
Democrats (CALD)’s important objectives is to strengthen
its member parties by offering training. One field where this is
of particular relevance is in the
management and organization
of political parties. Political parties are
vital
actors in any representative democracy, and the quality
of parties affects the quality of democracy. In the young democracies
of Asia, however, political parties are often relatively young too.
They suffer both from internal weaknesses and a lack of support
in improving their capabilities since many professionals shy away
from politics. CALD therefore decided to
fill the gap
and offer its member parties a chance to learn together from their
individual experiences. Together with the Friedrich Naumann Foundation
(FNF), it sponsored a party management and development workshop
in Jakarta, Indonesia from February 4-9, 2007.
To provide an outside perspective, Paul Rowland of the National
Democratic Institute of the US gave an overview of political
party development in Asia. Stefan Kapferer, former head of campaigning
ad strategy of the German Free Democratic
Party (FDP), presented the management structure and organizational
set-up of the FDP. He did this very effectively, brining out the
underlying challenges that participants could relate to and compare
to their own circumstances.
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| From left: FNF Jakarta Resident
Representative Rainer Adam, FNF Manila Resident Representative
Siegfried Herzog, and Dr. Romesh Fernando, Liberal Party of
Sri Lanka |
All the participating parties presented salient features of their
own organizational development and discussed them in the plenary.
Participants also divided into working groups for several breakout
sessions, discussing organizational structure and management functions,
internal and external regulation of parties, internal decision-making,
membership and grassroots organization.
In the end, the participants came up with a list of suggestions
for reforms. This list was subsequently submitted to the CALD
Executive Committee, which adopted it as a benchmark to
assess the future development of its members, and to
better assist in the ongoing organizational development process.
“The feedback of the participants has shown clearly that
this workshop has been both timely and practical,” said
FNF Resident Representative Siegfried Herzog, who participated
in the workshop. “There is great potential to professionalize
Asian liberal parties by such joint learning
processes, he continued. “We are encouraged to
continue supporting this approach.”
