Give characteristics of Political Competition.

A political competition may have many limitations such as it can results in factionalism, disunity and use of dirty tricks to win elections.  However, free competitions in elections works better in a longer run. Many political parties prepare their manifestoes in which they point out steps that they will take after they come to power. The voter is in an advantageous situation as he can assess the manifestoes and party policies and decide the party to which he/she wants to vote. In any democracy, elections are based on political competition and absence of competition hampers the working of democratic practices or institutions.

Characteristics of a political party are:

• A political party has members who agree on some policies and programmes for the society with a view to promoting the common good.
•  It seeks to implement the policies by winning popular support through elections.
•  The presence of a leader, the party workers and supporters.
•  It is a group of people who come together to contest elections and hold power in the government.