Madagascar Faces Too Many Parties

This article in the Wall Street Journal looks at the political situation in Madagascar as its government is in transition to try and get back to a state of democracy. The current President, Andry Rajoelina, is a former disc jockey who made his fame in the 1980’s and has since become Madagascar’s youngest leaders after the military coup overthrew the government in 2009. Madagascar is an extremely resource rich country and has a significant amount of economic potential that has yet to be harnessed due to Madagascar’s inability to organize. The country is trying to prove that they can restore democratic power without Western military firepower, but the political parties in the country are so varied they cannot seem to focus their efforts. Talks in October yielded over a dozen different parties interested in taking power who have had trouble finding a place to meet because venues are afraid the different parties will get in fistfights. Neighboring countries like South Africa, Tanzania, and Zambia are hoping that the numerous parties can find a system of consultation that can resolve the array of issues Madagascar faces. Becker and Olsen would look at these organizational issues as these groups inability to combine their causes. Olsen and Becker would be at odds about whether the large amounts of small groups is hurting or helping their causes. Olsen believes that bigger groups can hurt because the transactional costs are so large that it makes it extremely hard to organize and efficiently accomplish things. Becker believes that there are pros to having larger groups because that means the group has more votes. In this instance it is hard to say who would be right, with so many different political parties vying for power and nobody willing to give up their individual interests it is hard to see how democracy could be a success. Olsen would urge these political parties to put their individual interests aside because maximizing their interests would hurt the group overall. Ultimately, it seems that there may be a balance between having small groups with united interests and large groups that can represent close to a majority of the population. Madagascar will have to find some stand out political parties that can organize themselves and represent the population, but not too big of a group that they once again become inefficient.