Ugly campaigns hurt voter trust. Weak institutions make it worse.
November 20, 2025 - Kelechi Amakoh
This article first appeared in Good Authority. See the original article here https://goodauthority.org/news/ugly-negative-campaigning-hurts-voter-trust-africa-elections/
New research on negative campaigning in Africa reveals what really undermines democracy.
Malawi’s September 2025 general election took place after weeks of dramatic news stories. Peter Mutharika accused Malawi Congress Party (MCP) Secretary Richard Chimwendo Banda and President Lazarus Chakwera of intimidation in the Central Region. Banda responded by urging Mutharika to “clean his own house first,” citing cases of violence involving members of the Democratic Progressives Party (DPP).
This was just one of the fiery public exchanges marked by personal attacks and accusations. The exchanges prompted the Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) chairperson, Justice Annabelle Mtalimanja, to intervene. Her remarks captured a concern heard often across democracies: Negative campaigns can corrode trust in elections.
The logic behind this statement seems simple. When candidates trade insults instead of debating issues, citizens may conclude that politics is broken and that election results can’t be trusted. Harsh rhetoric, especially appeals to identity or division, is often blamed for weakening democracy. That is why election officials and civil society groups so often call for more civility in campaigns.
Are fiery and negative campaigns the real problem?
Scholars have long studied how negative campaigning affects candidates. This research has focused on whether attacks backfire or succeed in swaying voters. We know far less about how negativity shapes something even more fundamental: citizens’ confidence in election outcomes. That research gap matters, because trust in results underpins the legitimacy of democracy itself. My own research addresses this gap by examining surveys from 18 African countries to test how negative campaigns interact with the strength of election commissions.
To study the problem, I pulled together three sources of evidence. The first came from Afrobarometer surveys, which asked people in 18 African countries whether they trust election results. These surveys covered three different election cycles.
Trust in election outcomes
In countries like Madagascar and Ghana, most people say they trust election results “a lot.” In other countries, like Cameroon and Gabon, far fewer do, as the figure below shows. This variation is what my research seeks to explain.
Second, I used the findings of the Negative Campaigning Comparative Expert Survey (NEGex). In this survey, experts who study elections rate how negative or positive campaign coverage was in each country’s news media. That gave me a way to measure the tone of campaigns as citizens experienced it.
For the third source, I turned to the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project, which tracks how independent and credible election commissions are. This is a way to gauge whether campaign negativity matters. It’s also a way to measure whether strong, autonomous commissions can protect trust when political campaigns turn ugly.
More negativity, less trust
Here’s what I found: Extensive media attention to negative campaigning is linked to lower public trust in election results. Citizens who saw more hostile coverage of candidates were more likely to doubt the outcome of elections.
But this effect wasn’t uniform. In countries with strong and independent election commissions, the damage was far smaller. It’s likely that independent referees help cushion the blow, showing that institutions can protect electoral legitimacy even when campaigns turn ugly.
The lesson is clear. Negativity in campaigns matters, but it matters most where electoral commissions are weak.
Stronger institutions, stronger trust
These findings point to a simple lesson: Ugly campaigns may grab attention, but it’s the strength of institutions that determines whether voters maintain faith in elections.
This matters for efforts to strengthen and improve the democratic election process. Efforts to police campaign language may help tone down heated rhetoric, but these moves, on their own, are unlikely to restore the public’s confidence in their elections. What citizens need most is trust in the referees – like an independent election commission that’s prepared to enforce the election rules fairly.
The broader research across many democracies also points in this direction. Prior studies show that negativity can reduce political trust, weaken trust among voters, and fuel broader political distrust. My findings add that the effect is strongest where institutions are weak, and muted where election commissions are strong.
The takeaway is clear. Ugly campaigns may bruise democracy, but weak institutions are what break it.
Kelechi Amakoh is a PhD candidate in political science at Michigan State University, and a 2025–2026 Good Authority fellow. His research focuses on elite communication and how it shapes voter perceptions and democratic attitudes in multiethnic societies.