Delegation Reports
Report on election observing in Mongolia
18 to 21 September 2009
Report by John Grogan
Delegate
John Grogan MP, Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Mongolia
I visited Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia over the weekend of 18 to 21 September 2009 to observe the parliamentary by-election in the Chingeltei district. The visit was sponsored by the British Group of the IPU.
This by-election was significant because it was the first by-election since the General Election in 2008. On that occasion, after the then leader of the Opposition questioned the validity of the result, riots followed, six people were killed and the building of the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party was burned down. The political establishment and indeed the country as a whole were shocked by these developments because elections had been generally peaceful since the introduction of democracy following the withdrawal of the Russians in the early 1990s.
In 2008, a Government of National Unity was formed. The by-election I observed was caused by the election to the presidency of one of the incumbent MPs for the area some months earlier.
Mongolia now has a majoritarian system with on average three MPs representing each constituency (similar to the system operated in many English local councils).
The Chingeltei district has 71,742 voters on the electoral roll with 23 polling stations. Fourteen of the polling stations had a majority of the electorate coming from the Ger districts on the edge of the city. I visited a wide range of the polling stations.
It is a feature of the Mongolian system that the polling stations are staffed by party supporters rather than civil servants. Each polling station has a local election commission with the Chairman coming from one of the parties and the Secretary from the other.
There were eight candidates in the by-election and all had their representatives in the polling station either observing or helping to administer the poll. Everybody appeared to be particularly proud of a new digital technology system which for the first time held the list of voters and details of their registration.
Previously the voters’ list had been prepared by hand and there had been documented cases of individuals being registered and voting more than once in the same constituency.
At this election, the voters had to bring not just their identity cards but also a voter’s certificate carrying a special control code to match the state registration number of the citizen.
The polls were open from 7am to 10pm, and after the poll closed the ballots were counted in each individual polling station. The results were then phoned in to a central control. Surveillance cameras were installed at each polling station.
In the end, the turnout was 62.12% with 44,563 voters; 513 ballot papers were spoilt.
The result represented a significant victory for the MPRP. The candidate was the Minister for Energy who had recently signed an agreement with international mining firms including Rio Tinto.
Ministers do not have to be Members of Parliament but about a third of them are. His victory represented a gain from the Democrat Party and was accepted without question.
Candidate |
Votes |
|
|
Mr.Zorigt.D (MPRP) |
26,592 |
Ms.Burmaa (Democrat Party) |
13,027 |
Ms.Uyanga (Independent) |
2,010 |
Mr.Javkhlan (Independent) |
1,690 |
Mr.Arslan (Fair Citizen's Front) |
300 |
Tumurbataar (Independent) |
159 |
Mr.Tumursukh (Freedom Implementing Party) |
124 |
Mr.Jargalsaikhan (Republican Party) |
114 |
My conclusion was that the casting and counting of ballots were fair and that voter identification was now perhaps more rigorous than in the United Kingdom.
Nevertheless, the absence of limits of expenditure by individual candidates or the parties meant that there were some allegations of votes being bought. This was difficult to assess although I heard some anecdotal evidence of individuals receiving money for voting a particular way and proving their vote by taking a mobile phone into the polling station and taking a discreet photo of their completed ballot paper. A robust law against ‘treating’ might be one way forward.
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