Are candidates in your area breaking these electoral codes of conduct?

Less than two weeks out from the election, candidates are campaigning hard to woo voters and secure victory in the 12th National Election on January 7, 2024.

Cities, towns, and villages across the country have visibly transformed into their poll-time festive appearances.

However, election campaigns can be messy affairs if there are no rules regulating the activities. The risk of unfair practices and disruption to daily life in the name of campaigning for votes remains ever present. To curb this, an electoral code of conduct is usually set in place. In 2008, the Election Commission formulated the current code of conduct.

This code provides a detailed list of dos and don'ts for candidates during the period between the announcement of the election schedule and the results being published. This code of conduct has been amended twice, first in 2013 and then in 2018.

Here are some of the common breaches of the code that voters may be able to easily detect in their areas.

Loudspeaker use

This part of the electoral code of conduct is possibly the most relevant to the public's peace of mind. It limits usage of loudspeakers for election campaigning from 2:00pm to 8:00pm. So, if someone is subjected to excessively loud cries for one marka or the other after a long day of work, and the clock says that the time has moved past 8 o'clock in the evening, they should know that whichever candidate's campaign is doing this is in breach of the electoral code of conduct.

Disrupting public movement

The code of conduct disallows political parties, any candidate or their representatives from holding rallies or street rallies on roads that may disrupt the movement of the public. This means that if a candidate's rally is holding up traffic on a street, they are most likely in violation of an electoral code of conduct.

The many rules concerning posters

Posters are a huge part of campaigning, and a dominant feature of pre-polls environment in neighbourhoods across the country is thousands of posters put up in visible spots.

These posters, however, must meet some criteria. Posters have to be black and white in colour, and their dimensions cannot be more than 60cm X 45cm. Banners, which also must be black and white, can be as large as 3m X 1m. These posters or banners may only include portraits of the candidate themselves, and if they are nominated by a political party, the party leader's photo can also be included.

Furthermore, posters can only be hung. They cannot be plastered on walls, buildings, trees, fences, electricity or telephone poles, or any other upright object. Posters cannot be plastered on vehicles like buses, trucks, trains, steamers, or rickshaws. Notably, writing or drawing on walls or any other construction using ink or paint for the purpose of campaigning is also not allowed.

Using vehicles for processions

The use of vehicles such as trucks, buses, motorcycles, water transportation, trains or any other mechanical vehicles for processions, or holding torchlight processions, is against the electoral code of conduct. These vehicles can't be used for showdowns either.

Interestingly, candidates are not allowed to use helicopters or other forms of air travel for campaigning. Party leaders, however, are allowed to travel by air.

Regulations about pandals and camps

Firstly, election campaigners are not allowed to build any type of gate or arch, and they are not allowed to create structures that impede people's movement. If pandals are built, they cannot be bigger than 400 square feet. Election camps can be set up, but there should not be more than one such camp per union or city corporation ward. These camps are not allowed to serve soft drinks or food or give out any type of gifts to voters.

Other than these infringements of the code of conduct, there are more obvious and dangerous ones as well, some of them involving character assassination of opposing candidates, obstructing opposition rallies, resorting to violence, or using government resources for campaigning.

As voters in the coming days, it might be interesting to see whether candidates are indeed able to abide by these relatively simple codes of conduct. It is also important to know whether aspiring or incumbent lawmakers are actually law-abiding.