power and office. As Engholm and Mazrui (1969) have shown, the combination of floor
crossing and one-party-dominance can produce a centripetal effect in a ‘bad’ sense: massive
floor crossing created several African de facto one-party states in the 1960s before their
constitutions changed.
In this vein, the handling of the floor crossing legislation in South Africa is a clear indication
that party elites try to ensure that the institutional arrangement of the polity works in favour of
the dominant party, which means that there are (institutional) guarantees that the dominant
party is in a position to play its organisational advantage and electoral dominance off against
opposition parties.
“whereas a single member of any of the parties with less than ten MPs could defect (…) at
least twenty-seven MPs would have to conspire to defect (as a bloc) from the ANC, with all
the attendant risk of exposure and expulsion if the attempt were to fail.” (Myburgh 2003:
35).
foreseeable future, became aware that permission of floor crossing and the concomitant
politics of defection would by far outweigh the advantage of the anti-defection clause.
Similarly, the INC was the net gainer of defections during the heyday of one-party-dominance
in India. When there were first signs of electoral weakness after 1967 and it became clear that
in the States at least, there was a real chance of toppling Congress-governments thus gaining
access to state office and patronage, more defectors flowed out of Congress than in. But why
did the Congress not recover from this “defectors market”(Morris-Jones 1978: 155), why did
defections become so routinised in Indian party politics
nobody takes notice of them, they no more ‘make news’” (Kashyap 1974: 30) – given the fact
that the INC’s electoral dominance was far from over in 1967.
In this regard, the specific nature of Congress’ dominance has to be addressed as well. It was
based on factionalism and accommodation, a high degree of internal pluralism and a
pragmatic rather than ideological orientation. As long as the INC was able to uphold its
intricate structure of internal pluralism and factional balance, defections represented no
serious problem. It is therefore no wonder that defections gained serious proportions when
India’s party system experienced the first traces of electoral uncertainty, when the “(…)
emergence of a ‘market type’ polity” (Morris-Jones 1978: 146) set in and the Congress’
dominance changed quality.
49
The ‘Speaker provision’ of India’s anti-defection law can be seen in the same light.
50
An even more unequal ratio applies in the context of India’s anti-defection law.
51
Except perhaps for the authoritarian interlude of the Emergency.
52
The ‚ideological pragmatism’ of the Congress thereby has to be seen as rather ambivalent. As Singh (1981:
28) notes on Congress’ pragmatism: “While pragmatism of its leaders helps the predominant party to make, with
28
Convention