ULAANBAATAR: Mongolians began voting in parliamentary elections on Friday, with the ruling party widely expected to win despite deepening public anger over corruption and the state of the economy.
Voters across the vast, sparsely populated nation of 3.4 million — sandwiched between authoritarian China and Russia — are exercising their democratic rights to elect 126 members of the State Great Khural.
Polls opened at 7 am local time (2300 GMT Thursday), AFP reporters saw. They close at 10 pm.
Tsagaantsooj Dulamsuren, a 36-year-old cashier pregnant with her fourth child, told AFP that Friday’s poll offered her a chance to “give power to the candidates you really want to support.”
“I want lawmakers to provide more infrastructure development ... and more jobs in the manufacturing industry for young people,” she said outside a polling station at a hospital on the outskirts of Ulaanbaatar.
Analysts expect the ruling Mongolian People’s Party (MPP), led by Prime Minister Luvsannamsrain Oyun-Erdene, to retain the majority it has enjoyed since 2016 and govern the resource-rich country for another four years.
Yet there is deep public frustration over endemic corruption, as well as the high cost of living and lack of opportunities for young people who make up almost two-thirds of the population.
There is also a widespread view that the proceeds of a decade-long boom in coal mining that fueled double-digit growth are being hoarded by a wealthy elite.
Preliminary results are expected to come within a few hours despite Mongolia’s vast size, thanks to automated vote counting.
The streets of Ulaanbaatar — home to almost half the population — have been decked out with colorful campaign posters touting candidates from across the political spectrum, from populist businessmen to nationalists, environmentalists and socialists.
And, for the first time in almost a decade, parties are required by law to ensure that 30 percent of their candidates are women in a country where politics is dominated by men.
Mongolia's Prime Minister Luvsannamsrai Oyun-Erdene (C) arrives at a rally with Mongolian people's party parliamentary candidates in Ulaanbaatar on June 26, 2024, ahead of the parliamentary elections on June 28. (AFP)
Younger voters are not convinced, and the failure of the main opposition Democratic Party to provide a credible alternative has fueled the rise of minor parties.
The center-right anti-corruption HUN party is expected to increase its parliamentary representation through its social-media savvy, professional candidates, who enjoy significant support among the urban middle classes.
At a polling station in rural Sergelen, an administrative division over an hour’s drive from the capital, 45-year-old community leader Batsaikan Battseren said he was urging people to vote.
“Our area’s average participation is 60 percent,” the former herder said, dressed head to toe in a traditional Mongolian deel.
But, he explained, “young people from 18 to 30 years old don’t go to vote.”
“In previous elections, I would usually bring the youngsters who have just turned 18 to let them vote, but I couldn’t (convince them) this year,” he said.
Mongolia has plummeted in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index under Oyun-Erdene’s rule.
It has also fallen in press freedom rankings under the MPP, and campaigners say there has been a notable decline in the rule of law.
A survey by the Sant Maral Foundation, Mongolia’s top independent polling body, suggested more than a third of Mongolians believe the country is “changing into a dictatorship.”
“I’ll describe this election as a referendum on... Prime Minister Oyun-Erdene and whether he will manage to get a mandate to rewrite Mongolia’s social contract,” Bayarlkhagva Munkhnaran, political analyst and former adviser on the National Security Council of Mongolia, told AFP.
“This social contract will be about turning Mongolia into a proper electoral autocracy whereas, 10 years ago, Mongolia used to be respected as a liberal democracy,” he said.
The MPP is the successor to the communist party that ruled Mongolia with an iron grip for almost 70 years. Still, it remains popular, particularly among rural, older voters, and commands a sprawling, nationwide campaign apparatus.
Former president Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj, who held office for the opposition Democratic Party from 2009 to 2017, hailed the start of the election on X on Friday morning, writing: “As the Mongolian saying goes, ‘It is better to live by your own choice than according to others’ choices.’
“Around 260 foreign observers and three dozen journalists are present. I hope for genuinely democratic and transparent elections.”
