Election day

Hi all

As promised, let’s speak this time about the elections, which were held last Thursday.

So first a little bit of background. There are 2 main political parties in Mongolia, the “MPP” (Mongolian's People Party) who used to be the Communist party at the time of the USSR, 

and the Democratic party which represents more the “new Mongolia”.

A third contestant, Mongolian People Revolutionary Party (MPRP) which is very nationalist and very communist joined also the election after separating from MPP, 

and also last but not least, a (without any chance) Ecological party.


Last legislative elections in 2008 were a little bit of a drama. The Republican Party won, but there were a lot of contestation about irregularities. This lead to riots which were violently repressed, with 4 young killed by the police. In the fight, the building of the party burnt down in a huge fire which also destroyed half of the art museum (still not rebuilt since then).

Since then a new electoral law came into place, forbidding parties to promise cash handouts (every Mongolian received during these 4 years around 760 USD what corresponded to more than 50% of that time GDP/capita), and installing votes machines to count automatically.

The electoral campaign was intense. Everywhere in town were huge advertisement boards

for the candidates. On TV there were permanently campaign advertisements. Campaign teams were also very active, almost everywhere, distributing flyers several times to every single home, sending text messages to every cell phone…
The ex-president, and now head of MPRP was also arrested for corruption, what prevented him from being a candidate. He went on hunger-strike and almost died before being released before the elections.

The main subject was the management of these huge revenues which are going to flown soon. How to redistribute it? This is a little bit of a problem, because being wise will be to invest these revenues back. But you can’t forget that 30% of the population is poor and need help right now. 

Elections were also the occasion of an uprising of Nationalism on the theme “Foreign companies still wealth of Mongolia. We can’t forget that racism is a reality here. I would tell you about that another time.

The day of elections was off. It was forbidden to sell alcohol, and police was everywhere to prevent riots. The official results are not known right now. Democratic Party claim victory. But will it have absolute or only relative majority? What is sure is that most UlaanBataar inhabitants voted for them but the electoral committee invalidates some results of the countryside. So there will be either recounting or even re-voting.

We are not close to have a new government, let’s hope that everything will be peacefull