A parliamentary election will be held in Mongolia on Friday for the first time since the body was expanded to 126 seats, adding some uncertainty to a vote that has been monopolised by two political parties and plagued by corruption. The election in a relatively new democracy \u2013 the country was a single-party communist state until 1990 \u2013 comes at a time when many Mongolians have soured on the government, which they see as benefiting business interests and the wealthy.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have democracy only in appearance,\u201d said Gantamur Dash, who earns money taking photos of tourists at the central square in Ulaanbaatar, the capital. \u201cOnly a few are living luxurious lives and the rest of the population is poor.\u201d Mongolia is a sparsely populated country of 3.4 million people in East Asia squeezed between China and Russia. The government has sought to maintain ties with its much larger neighbours while also building new ones with the United States and its democratic allies \u2013 a delicate task since the two sides are increasingly at odds.<\/p>\n
The political system is serving the interests of a few instead of the general population, said Sumati Luvsandendev, the director of the Sant Maral polling organisation, adding that the United States faces the same problem. Still, he said, most people want to stick with democracy. \u201cCommunism doesn\u2019t work for Mongolia,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is a collective system and we are \u2026 individualists.\u201d The ruling Mongolian People\u2019s Party is favoured to win the vote, though that is not a foregone conclusion. At a minimum, the overwhelming majority it holds in the current parliament could be reduced.<\/p>\n
The parliament approved a constitutional change last year that added 50 seats and created two ways of electing members: 78 are chosen from 13 multi-member constituencies and 48 are allocated to political parties depending on the percentage of the vote they get in the election. The new system may give more political parties a chance to win seats in parliament, though they will have to reach a minimum percentage to do so. Baljinnyam Nemekhjargal, a bank manager, favoured having a strong ruling party in the previous election in 2020, but he said he no longer thinks so.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the reforms were right,\u201d he said. \u201cWe don\u2019t need a supermajority. The opposition should be strong too.\u201d Sukhbaatar Enkhjargal, the head of a tech group that does election monitoring, isn\u2019t convinced the changes will help and worries that they will create new problems. They will give more power to the party leaders, as lawmakers chosen by the party vote will be loyal to their party, not to the voters from a particular constituency.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the beginning of the democratic period, we\u2019ve been quite successful,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been, like, \u2018Oasis of Democracy\u2019 from central Asia, etcetera. But now we really going back.\u201d Discontent with the government has been fuelled by corruption. Large protests broke out in 2022 demanding that officials be held accountable for the alleged theft of 385,000 tons of coal from stockpiles on the border with China, a major buyer of Mongolian coal.<\/p>\n
\u201cMongolian democracy has proven to be resilient over the years but \u2026 continued support \u2026 in the form of democratic solidarity and increased economic engagement will remain vital to Mongolia\u2019s Oasis of Democracy,\u201d the International Republican Institute, an American group that promotes democracy worldwide, said this week in an online post on Friday\u2019s election.<\/p>\n
The two largest parties, the ruling Mongolian People\u2019s Party and the Democratic Party, have included younger candidates in their mix in a bid to woo potential young voters and reshape their party images to counter public cynicism toward the government. Younger voters make up a large part of the voting-age population, but historically they have not turned out in large numbers. If they do, that could benefit the HUN Party, which has emerged as a potential third force in Mongolian politics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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