The ruling party or governing party in a democratic parliamentary system is the incumbent political party or coalition of the majority in parliament, that administers the affairs of state. Within a parliamentary system, the majority in the legislature also controls the executive branch of government, thus leaving no possibility of dueling parties concurrently occupying the executive and legislative branches of government, such as in an American style presidential system where the party of the president does not necessarily also have a legislative majority.
A ruling party is also used to describe the party of single-party states, such as the Communist Party of China in the People's Republic of China. In his political manifesto The Green Book, the late Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi attacked the ability of the ruling party, using it as a basis for his opposition to partisan politics. This is an example of methods and rationale that dictatorships espouse to establish an unchanging monolithic society, tyrannical rule and autocracy, without any participatory opportunities offered to a population.
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Famous quotes containing the words ruling and/or party:
“Still doth the soul, from its lone fastness high,
Upon our life a ruling effluence send.
And when it fails, fight as we will, we die;
And while it lasts, we cannot wholly end.”
—Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
“When the doctrine of allegiance to party can utterly up-end a man’s moral constitution and make a temporary fool of him besides, what excuse are you going to offer for preaching it, teaching it, extending it, perpetuating it? Shall you say, the best good of the country demands allegiance to party? Shall you also say it demands that a man kick his truth and his conscience into the gutter, and become a mouthing lunatic, besides?”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)