Perceptions of Electoral Trustworthiness in Turkey a Qualitative Study Based on Political Party Representatives

Electoral trustworthiness -the safeguarding of electoral processes from distortions, violations, and manipulations- is fundamental to democratic integrity. In emerging democracies such as Turkey, political parties are key actors, shaping and monitoring elections while gaining experience across pre-election, election day, and post-election stages. This study examines political parties’ perceptions of electoral trustworthiness in Turkey through a qualitative provincial case study situated within the Turkish context using semi-structured interviews with provincial, district, and vice-chairs from various parties in a selected province. Data were analyzed via content analysis. Findings suggest that, within the studied province, pre-election concerns involve campaign irregularities, voter pressure, and legislative gaps; election day issues include voter intimidation, limited polling station oversight -especially in rural areas- and challenges for opposition parties in appointing officials and observers; post-election concerns relate to transparency and impartiality of electoral bodies, lack of judicial review over Supreme Election Council decisions, and procedural flaws. These point to an urgent need for reforms and stronger oversight. © The Author(s) 2026. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).