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What are the steps in the lawmaking process | Laws are made through bills. A bill is a draft of a proposed law. The function of a bill is to: (a) enact a new law or (b) amend an existing law. There are two main types of bill, namely, public and private bills. 

There are several limitations on the power of the leglslature. They include; Development of Political Parties, Expansion of Executive Powers, Judicial Review, Public Opinion & The Electorate.

How Bills Become Law? | A public bill goes through three stages, namely, the first reading, second reading and third reading before it becomes an Act of Parliament or a law.

As the hub around which the wheel of government revolves, the executive is the active force in government. As such, it performs a number of functions and exercises certain powers which are necessary for the survival of the political system. Some of these powers and functions of the executive are explained below.

Limitations on the Powers of the Executive Branch | 1. There is parliamentary control of the executive, especially in a cabinet system of government. The prime minister and his cabinet are responsible to the lower house. That is, they must explain and defend their policies in the house, and if the parliament withdraws its support for the government, the prime minister either resigns or advises the king or president to dissolve parliament in order to seek fresh support through a general election.

Rights, Duties and Obligations of a Citizen | Citizenship confers both rights and duties on a citizen. Since the citizen enjoys all the rights provided by his state, it follows that he is obliged to perform certain duties and obligation to the state in return. This is because every right or privilege entails a responsibility.

A citizen is defined as a legal member of a state with full constitutional or legal rights in the country in which he or she resides. While an alien or a non-citizen is any individual who is not a national of a State in which he or she is present.

Just as citizens have certain rights, duties and obligations, a government also enjoys a number of rights and performs certain obligations. It is, however, more appropriate to talk about the obligations rather than the duties of government, as it may be difficult to compel a government to discharge its responsibility to the Citizens.

Citizenship is a term by which we express the status of individuals who possess full political rights. In the Roman Empire, it was not every resident of the Empire that was accorded the privileged status of citizens.

The simple majority means that the candidate with the largest number of votes wins the election. For example, five candidates (A, B, C, D and E) contested election in a federal constituency. Their respective votes are as follows.  

Problems of Electoral Commissions In order to ensure that elections are conducted freely and in an orderly manner, an electoral commission is usually established. The...

Political Parties is defined as an organised group of citizens, act together as a political unit, having distinctive aims and objectives involving political questions in the state and acting together and seeking to obtain control of government.

The behaviour of political parties is determined by the kind of party systems in existence. Where the party system is competitive, the parties will likely be engaged in continual political activities. But where there is no inter-party competition, as in one-party states, the political party will be primarily engaged in the practice and justification of political authority.

Multi Party System | Governments are usually based on center coalitions with the parties of the right and left in opposition. Thus, for most of the time since 1947, the Christian Democrats (a party of the center) has formed the Governments in Italy with the smaller parties which are to the right or left.

The two party system is a system in which there are two major political parties of nearly equal strength and a few minor parties that may be too small to have any major influence on the outcome of an election, although a third party may arise which threatens to, and sometimes does supplant one of the two large parties.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Two-Party System Two-Party system may be defined as the existence of only two major political parties in a political system. These...

A multi-party system is therefore a system in which there are several political parties of nearly equal strength. Unlike the two party system in which two of the many parties may be dominant, multipartyism is a party system in which there are several parties, any of which can win a general election.

One of the disadvantages of Multi-party System is that the system is defective in that it is usually difficult for one party to win an election. As such coalition governments which are generally unstable are formed to overcome the problem.

Many things can be learnt from the processes of return to civil rule in Africa and especially in Nigeria. But the most important lesson is that it is extremely difficult for the military to withdraw from politics once they are in it.

The Peoples Democratic Party was formed on 28th July, 1998 and formally launched on 31st August, 1998. It was one of the three parties registered by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the 1999 elections.