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Business News/ Opinion / Modelling a new election code
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Modelling a new election code

Befitting a democracy that is going to federal elections for the sixteenth time, many new ideas should be brought into the Model Code of Conduct

The success of the model code of conduct is a bit of a mystery. It has worked in part because political parties agreed to follow it. Photo: Hindustan Times Premium
The success of the model code of conduct is a bit of a mystery. It has worked in part because political parties agreed to follow it. Photo: Hindustan Times

India is going to the polls.

It is a magnificently large election. Nine phases, 815 million eligible voters, nearly a million polling stations and double that number of electronic voting machines. Simultaneous with the poll announcement, the model code of conduct (MCC) for the guidance of political parties and candidates went into effect. Most readers of this newspaper will know about the MCC but few are likely to have read it or know how it came about.

The MCC is a set of guidelines (not rules) that political parties first agreed upon in 1971. Since then it has been tweaked to reflect the changing election scene in India. It is a simple document of six pages that broadly guides how political parties and candidates should conduct themselves before and during an election. The code, available on the Election Commission’s (EC) website, is divided into eight sections that deal with general conduct, meetings, and processions, polling day, polling booth, observers and the conduct of the party in power. A section on the principles that will underlie the guidelines for election manifestoes was added in 2013 in response to a public interest litigation filed (PIL) filed in the Supreme Court. The EC is charged with ensuring that parties and candidates follow the MCC.

Even though it is meant as a set of guidelines, the MCC reads like a set of commandments. For instance the MCC says “If the (political) procession is very long, it shall be organized in segments of suitable lengths, so that at convenient intervals, especially at points where the procession has to pass road junctions, the passage of held up traffic could be allowed by stages thus avoiding heavy traffic congestion".

The MCC primarily attempts to mitigate the exploitation of religious, caste and class divides in society. In that sense its basic objective is a peaceful election. The word “free" or “fair" does not appear anywhere in the code. Having dealt with “reducing hatred" the MCC goes on to issue a set of inane commands such as the one above on the length of processions.

Election codes of conduct are de rigueur in most Western democracies. They come in very different packages. The US Federal Election Commission has a campaign law compilation that runs over two hundred pages that combines the working of the commission with other topics such as campaign finance, use of broadcast channels and campaign criminal law. The Australian Election Commission has a comprehensive candidate handbook that details everything a candidate needs to know about elections. To the best of my knowledge, other than a few countries in Africa, there are no election codes anywhere else in the world that deal with processions, loudspeakers and effigies.

The success of the MCC is a bit of a mystery. The code has no specific legal standing. Any unsettled dispute must go to judicial process. In a country where rules are broken with impunity it is interesting to observe that this honour code has survived and worked. Some of the mystery is explained by the fact that despite the odds, elections and election outcomes have remained sacrosanct in Indian democracy. Perhaps some part of the explanation must come from the fact that the parties themselves have agreed on this code. By and large the EC has done a good job of communicating the code and warning of dire consequences if it is flouted. Even accounting for this, it does remain a puzzle.

Should the MCC be strengthened and improved?

The code appears to have worked in India. Most lay observers will agree that the use of wall posters, deafening loudspeakers and disruptive processions has come down over the years. So why mess with something that is working? I contend that the code has worked because it is spectacularly devoid of ambition. By setting itself a goal of reducing inconvenience, it is simply catering to the lowest common denominator that a group of political parties have agreed upon.

Befitting a democracy that is going to federal elections for the sixteenth time, many new ideas should be brought in. A good place to start will be to enunciate the purpose for a new and improved code of conduct. Candidates and parties should subscribe to peaceful, free and fair elections conducted under the spirit and rules of the Constitution. They should pledge to honour the rules of campaign finance, electoral laws and broadcast. A real step forward will be if parties agree not to field criminals as candidates. Party and candidate handbooks that detail their role and conduct and the election framework should be available in English and the vernacular on the EC website. Over the years, the EC has established its credibility as an impartial implementer and referee. It should use that clout to help raise the standards of electoral conduct in India.

P.S: “Laws control the lesser man, right conduct controls the greater one", said Mark Twain.

Narayan Ramachandran is chairman, InKlude Labs. Comments are welcome at narayan@livemint.com

To read Narayan Ramachandran’s previous columns, go to www.livemint.com/avisiblehand

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Published: 09 Mar 2014, 05:28 PM IST
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