Political parties play a key role in democratic processes. They are critical to ensuring participation in political life, the expression of the will of the people, and serve a wide range of functions. To fulfil these functions, political parties require financial resources. However, if the funding of political parties and elections is nor properly regulated, this can lead to a dominant party system, where the abuse of public resources by the incumbent ensures their re-election. The question of how to adequately fund democratic political systems and the role that money should play is a particularly vexed issue. It is widely recognised that regulatory provisions alone are insufficient. Further, there are limits to effectively regulating political party financing. This query sheds light on this issue by drawing on examples of transitions from a dominant party system to a multi-party system.