Mongolians Head to Polls for Country’s Biggest-Ever Election

(Bloomberg) -- Mongolians will head to the polls on Friday to vote for a new parliament, with many looking for a party best-suited to deliver on promises of sharing mining wealth and cracking down on entrenched corruption.

The election will be Mongolia’s first since amending the constitution in 2023 to expand the parliament by 50 members and it opens the door for more parties to take seats in the body. Sweeping changes to rules and the makeup of its legislature promise the largest and most diverse collection of lawmakers yet. 

All 126 seats in the parliament known as the State Great Khural will be up for grabs with the key number being 64 seats to claim a majority.

The Mongolian People’s Party currently has 62 seats in the current, smaller body, while the Democratic Party has 10. A third party called KhUN, which means “person” in the Mongolian language, has a single seat. The latest revisions offer select voters more than 100 candidates to choose from and establishes a minimum 30% of seats reserved for women, from the current 14 lawmakers in office.

Some of the key issues are corruption in Mongolia’s mining sector after two former government members received guilty verdicts for what state prosecutors say was their part in the pilfering of coal from state-owned stockpiles.

Mining represented 28% of Mongolia’s GDP last year and comprised 86% of all exports, mostly to China. The country has vast resources of coal and copper, a metal deemed crucial to the global energy transition. Its largely untapped deposits of rare earths have attracted mining interests from countries including France, Germany and the US.

Adding to the tensions for the vote was an unusual act of violence this month when a member of the Democratic Party was killed, with the suspect being an election campaigner from another party, local news outlet ikon.mn reported, citing police. 

While the MPP leader said the party would drop the candidacy of Defense Minister Saikhanbayar Gursed, for whose campaign the alleged attacker was working for, the candidate vowed to continue his campaign, ikon reported.

The East Asian nation has also struggled to deal with disinformation on social media, including deepfake videos. Civil society groups criticized the government’s efforts to crack down on fake news, which have included detaining journalists. The Justice Ministry declined to comment on the arrests.

The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe has sent a team to observe the elections for the landlocked country sandwiched between China and Russia. 

In addition to being the largest election with about 1,340 candidates, the ballots will also be larger than ever after drastic reform to the organization of election districts. 

Mongolia’s dependence on mining revenues from a handful of commodities almost entirely bought up by Chinese buyers keeps the country vulnerable to boom-bust commodity cycles, limited employment opportunities, and inequality. 

“Diversification remains a major, major, major issue of discussion,” said Khashchuluun Chuluundorj, a professor of economics who is on the board of Mongolian Mining Corporation and is executive director of the Mongolia Oil Shale Association.

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