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With just three days to go be­fore the Gen­er­al Elec­tion, the Coun­cil for Re­spon­si­ble Po­lit­i­cal Be­hav­iour has flagged a spike in se­ri­ous breach­es of the Code of Eth­i­cal Po­lit­i­cal Con­duct, rais­ing con­cerns about the tone and tac­tics emerg­ing in the fi­nal days of the cam­paign.

The coun­cil, led by Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath, said yes­ter­day that it had re­ceived sev­er­al com­plaints in the past week, many of which were up­held af­ter re­view. These in­clude the use of racial­ly charged and deroga­to­ry lan­guage, char­ac­ter at­tacks, ex­ces­sive neg­a­tive cam­paign­ing, and the re­moval or de­face­ment of op­po­nents’ cam­paign ma­te­ri­als.

On Thurs­day, PNM Diego Mar­tin North East can­di­date Colm Im­bert post­ed a video on X (for­mer­ly Twit­ter) show­ing a man rip­ping down one of his bill­boards.