The ruling Mongolian People’s Party is expected to win another term despite concerns about its government.
Polls have opened in Mongolia, where the ruling Mongolian People’s Party (MPP) is expected to secure victory despite deepening public outrage over corruption and the state of the economy.
Voters across the vast country, sandwiched between China and Russia, are choosing 126 members for an enlarged state, the Great Khural, the country’s parliament.
The polls opened at 7am local time (11pm GMT on Thursday) and closed at 10pm (2pm GMT). Preliminary results are expected within a few hours as a result of automated vote counting.
The MPP under Prime Minister Luvsannamsrain Oyun-Erdene won a landslide victory in the last elections in 2020, but there is growing frustration with endemic corruption, the high cost of living and the lack of opportunities for young people who make up almost two-thirds of the population. the population.
Enkhmandakh Boldbaatar, 38, a voter on the outskirts of the capital Ulaanbaatar, said he did not vote for either the MPP or the main opposition Democratic Party, saying they also did not perform well. There are 19 parties vying for seats in parliament.
“I’ve lived here for 38 years, but the area is the same,” Boldbaatar told the Associated Press news agency. “Only this road and a few buildings were built. Things would have been different if it worked for the people.”
The center-right anti-corruption party HUN is expected to increase its seats thanks to its professional, social media-savvy candidates who enjoy significant support among the urban middle classes.
“I think young people are more aware of the activities of political parties,” Norovbanzad Ganbat, a 24-year-old IT worker, told AFP news agency. “They can see what MPP has done in the last four years. That’s why young people don’t vote for this party.”
Fears of ‘dictatorship’
Mongolia dropped five points to 33 out of 100 on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, and is currently ranked 121st out of 180 countries and territories on the list.
It also fell in press freedom ratings under the MPP, and activists say there has been a notable decline in the rule of law.
Taking the stage at a rally on Wednesday, Oyun-Erdene blamed her political opponents for turning Mongolia into a “land of corrupt leaders” and called for a return to “discipline”.
A survey carried out by the Sant Maral Foundation, Mongolia’s main independent polling body, suggested that more than a third of Mongolians believe the country is “turning into a dictatorship”.
The streets of Ulaanbaatar, where almost half of Mongolia’s 3.4 million people live, were decorated with colorful campaign posters touting candidates from across the political spectrum, from populist businesspeople to nationalists, environmentalists and socialists.
For the first time in almost a decade, parties are required by law to guarantee that 30% of their candidates are women.
Former President Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj, who held office in the opposition Democratic Party from 2009 to 2017, welcomed the start of elections on Day X on Friday morning, writing: “As the Mongolian saying goes: ‘It is better to live by your own choice than according to the choices of others.’”
“Around 260 foreign observers and three dozen journalists are present. I hope for genuinely democratic and transparent elections,” he added.
Mongolia became a democracy in 1990, ending more than six decades of communist rule.
In addition to corruption, which has triggered waves of protests in recent years, the main issues for voters include unemployment and inflation in an economy shaken first by the COVID-19 pandemic and then by the fallout from the war in Ukraine. The country’s livestock farmers were also hit this year by a “dzud”, a combination of extreme cold and drought, which killed millions of animals.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
