5.3 Code and Practice

The election code of conduct — the EC's own-issued discipline (the Election Commission Act 2073's power; the Code of Conduct 2072's updated faces): the government's restraint once the calendar begins (no new programmes, transfers, appointments — the incumbent's advantage's brake); the parties'-and-candidates' disciplines (the spending limits, the rallies'-and-speeches' civility, the hate-speech bar, the social-media faces of the recent editions); the media's-and-polls' rules (the silence period; the exit-poll embargo); the public-officials' neutrality; the enforcement's teeth (the warning → the sanctions ladder: the party-recognition's-and- candidacy's faces, the expenses' disallowance). The practice's layer (the exam's honestaudit): the EC's own evolution — from the 1990s' logistical struggles to the biometric-and-electronic era (the EVM's-and-ballot-printing's security, the result-transmission's digitisation); the security's choreography (the security personnel's deployment plan); the election observation's institutionalisation (the national observers' accreditation — NEON's generation; the international missions' reports); the voters'-education drives; and the chronic practice-questions: the money's- and-muscle's persistence, the code's uneven enforcement (the big-party's tolerance complaints), the local-level's central interference, and the election-time governance vacuum (the caretaker conventions).