Türkiye’de Seçim Bütünlüğü ve Seçim Gözlemi

Siyasi kutuplaşmalar, popülist söylemlerin yükselişi ve küresel ölçekte risk toplumunun gelişimi, seçimbütünlüğü ve meşruiyetini olumsuz etkilemektedir. Bu bağlamda, yerel seçim gözlemi adil, güvenli veşeffaf seçim süreçlerinin sağlanabilmesi için bir zorunluluk olmaktadır. Türkiye’de seçimleri gözlemleyençeşitli sivil toplum örgütleri ve aktörleri olmakla birlikte, yerel seçim gözlem kuruluşu şekilde çalışanbir sivil toplum kuruluşu, Oy ve Ötesi, bulunmaktadır. Türkiye’de seçim çalışmaları seçim bütünlüğükavramı üzerinde durmamakta ve vatandaşlar yerel seçim gözlemi konusunda bilgi sahibi değildirler.Bu makalenin amacı öncelikle seçim bütünlüğü kavramını tanımlamak ve yerel seçim gözleminin,özellikle de siyasi kutuplaşmanın görüldüğü toplumlarda, öneminin altını çizmektir. Bu bağlamda,iki araştırma sorusu bu makalenin temelini oluşturmaktadır: yerel seçim gözlem grupları Türkiye’deseçim bütünlüğü ve meşruiyetini nasıl sağlayabilir? Oy ve Ötesi gönüllülerinin Türkiye’deki seçimbütünlüğü üzerine düşünceleri nelerdir? Bu sorular çerçevesinde, makalede, Türkiye’de seçimlere dairbilginin gelişmesi ve seçim meşruiyetinin sağlanması için çalışan Oy ve Ötesi derneğinin çalışmalarıve gönüllülerinin seçim bütünlüğünün gelişimine katkısı incelenecektir. Çalışmanın verileri Oy veÖtesi Derneği’nin iki yöneticisi ile gerçekleştirilmiş derinlemesine görüşmenin ve gönüllüler arasındagerçekleştirilmiş pilot anket çalışmasının verilerine dayanmaktadır. Çalışmanın ilk argümanı şöyledir:küresel ölçekte gözlemlenen toplumsal ve siyasi kutuplaşma, popülizm ve gerçek sonrası söylemlerlegelişen risk toplumu, seçim bütünlüğünü olumsuz etkilemektedir. İkinci argüman ise, seçimlerdekiyanlış uygulamalar, vatandaşları seçimlere ve secim gözlemine katılmaya teşvik etmektedir. Bu yaklaşımçerçevesinde, makale, Türkiye’deki seçim çalışmalarına teorik ve ampirik çerçevede bir katkı sağlamayıhedeflemektedir.

Electoral Integrity and Election Monitoring in Turkey

The political polarization, populist discourses and development of risk society inside the global contexthave been causing damages on electoral integrity and legitimacy. Domestic election monitoring is anecessity in order to establish a fair, secure and transparent election process. In Turkey, there is onedomestic monitoring organization, Vote and Beyond and a few non-governmental organizations tryingto observe elections. Elections in Turkey have not been analyzed around the concept of electoralintegrity and citizens are not aware of domestic monitoring. The aim of this paper is to present theconcept of electoral integrity and underline the importance of domestic monitoring, especially inpolitically divided societies. Our two key questions for this article are: “how can domestic monitoringorganizations help to establish electoral integrity and legitimacy in Turkey?”, “what are the ideas ofvolunteers at Vote and Beyond on electoral integrity in Turkey?” According to these questions, thisarticle aims to analyze the activities of Vote and Beyond aiming to develop electoral knowledge ofTurkish people and legitimacy of the elections in Turkey and the impact of volunteers working withinthis NGO. Our analysis will be based on in-depth interviews with the founders and a pilot study of asurvey realized with volunteers of Vote and Beyond. The first argument relies on the idea that socialand political polarization and the development of global risks by populist and post-truth politicshave negative impacts on electoral integrity. And the second argument is that election malpracticesencourage more and more citizens to participate in election observation in order to prevent fraudand corruption during the elections. Within this approach, the article aims to make a theoretical andempirical contribution to electoral studies in Turkey.

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