The Indian version is called the Model Code of Conduct and it is enforced by the Election Commission of India.[1] The ECI even takes control of the bureaucratic and law and order machinery in the period leading up to the elections.
> So what's the issue here?
Typical left wing complaints about anything and everything in countries where they don't see a chance of returning to power by electoral means. If the people are not voting for them, it is obviously because the ruling party and their supporters are fascists. There can be no other reason.
These narratives are built and spread using their control of media. Their friends in the Global Left help amplify the message.
Especially when one of the chief complaints about the democratic backsliding in Poland and Hungary is precisely the encroachment on freedom of press (together with the erosion of the separation of powers).
Most influential media outlets in the West lean left-to-far-left. There can be no serious dispute about it. There is some neocon influence as well but the neocons do not have problems with the left as long as it does not interfere with their regime change projects.
> democratic backsliding
A concept invented to label governments that are not easily controlled. They try the same thing here in India.
Three generations of a single dynasty ruled India for 40 of 42 years (1947-1989). The country was a de facto one-party state. But, according to Western media, India only became an "electoral autocracy" after people elected a right-wing government with a majority in 2014. By every statistical measure, the country is more peaceful than it has ever been (communal riots, terrorist attacks, insurgencies). But if you read the Western press, one gets the feeling that the country is on fire.
So, it is not surprising to me that they try the same trick with Poland and Hungary.
Only what I read in the Western press. But given what I know about their reporting about India, it is hard to give them the benefit of the doubt when they attack right-wing governments running other countries.
As someone who actually designed a database with media affiliations in the past, I can seriously dispute this statement. AFAIK right-leaning Western media have enough influence to boost conservative agenda nearly everywhere. Remember, just recently Trump was a president of the USA, not least thanks to Fox Corp. In Germany we have Axel Springer, in UK there's Daily Mail etc.
When you make such confident claims, it makes sense to bring some data on the table.
Let me clarify.
When I speak of influence, I am not speaking about the influence tabloids have on people and their voting patterns. Instead, I am referring to "newspaper of record" type influence; news sources that will be used by academics and historians of the future to write the history of this era.
To expand on this a bit, the problem with right-wing media is that it is not taken seriously and a lot of it has to do with a lack of serious reporting. I find it very funny when right-wing media of one country refers to left-wing media of another country in their articles and programs because they are either unaware of local right-wing sources or simply do not trust them.
Definitions are contextual. Your definition of influence is local, mine is global. That does not make your definition factual and mine non-factual/"new."
All the biased reporting about India comes from outlets like the NYT/WP/FT/Economist/BBC etc which is then picked up by local media from both sides. So, when I refer to influential Western media outlets, those are the ones.
(I am surprised as to why you would expect someone from India to follow Fox or Daily Mail or whatever your local RW outlet is. Can you name a single "influential" RW media outlet from India?)
The practice of the media predicting results based on exit polls and then everyone just treating them as if they're authoritative is equally bizarre.
But the incremental results: we have distributed elections. For the people reporting results the election is over.
If you only vote for president? There’s no reason to go to the polls in the majority of states.
The problems even worse in Australia where voting is mandatory with a fine but if you’re in Western Australia you could be “forced” to vote in an already concluded election.
Western Australians are voting for completely different MPs and Senators to people in other states/electorates, and even if they weren't it's a small price to pay compared to having half the country not turn up on voting day.
Many countries (such as, say, France) have similar laws. Sounds okay to me. So what's the issue here?