What is the current status and functioning of the Cape Verde parliament and its oversight of the security sector? This chapter examines the specialised committees responsible for scrutiny of the security sector. It finds that Cape Verde is consciously building a framework for democratic control of the security sector, and that parliament has played an important role in securing stability in the country and in oversight of the security sector. However, the performance of the specialised committees responsible for security and defence issues need to be improved and sub-committees are required in order to enhance the performance of the national assembly.
Cape Verde’s Prime Minister, Jose Maria Neves, is currently involved in reforms designed to bring the government closer to the citizens and to obtain the trust of creditors. The rule of law has been established and the parliament has a relatively important role in the policy arena.
The National Assembly is currently composed of 73 directly elected deputies. The assembly has the exclusive power to legislate on the organisation of national defence and on the state of siege and of emergency. However, the parliament does not have the power to amend the defence budget or to approve or disapprove supplementary proposals.
Among the seven specialised committees of the National Assembly, two are responsible for defence and security affairs. As far as oversight over security and defence issues is concerned, there are still many weaknesses in parliamentary performance.
- According to the Cape Verdean president of parliament, Aristides Lima, the weakness of the parliament is one of the reasons for the fragility of the country’s democracy.
- Taking into account the four categories of parliament proposed by Blondel (the ’emerging parliaments’, the ‘truncated parliaments’, the ‘inhibited parliaments’ and the ‘true parliaments’), Lima classifies the Cape Verdean parliament as an ‘inhibited parliament’. In fact, the parliament is still ‘unable to influence the executive in a significant way’.
- According to Lima, ‘we have carried out privatisations, legislative reforms, several decentralisations of power, but the machine of the state is still heavy, the reform of parliament is incomplete, the government and the administration have not been reduced and the decentralisation is not complete yet’.
- The president notes that the reasons for the fragility of the national assembly are the non-exclusivity of the deputies’ mandate ‘who accumulate this function along with another one in the public administration and the private sector’ as well as the ‘external influence in the committees’ work capacity’.
It is essential that the functioning of the specialised committees be improved and that sub-committees be created in order to improve the performance of the national assembly.
- The Cape Verde parliament plays an important role in the consolidation of democracy and it contributes to the maintenance of good relations with other bodies and the electorate.
- While its oversight functions are not completely satisfactory, many efforts have been made to improve parliamentary control in general and over the security sector in particular.
- The difficulties experienced by the specialised committees in dealing with defence and security sector are not different from those experienced by other specialised committees.
