Mongolian Parliamentary Elections Should Open Doors To Greater Engagement – OpEd
By Mike Mitchell and Grayden Mitchell
To watch it was to gain a greater understanding of the commitment Mongolians have for democratic governance: A young man, carefully sliding his ballot into the voting machine, then bowing and gently touching his forehead to the Mongolian flag before bringing his lips up to kiss the red and blue folds, an act of patriotic love and reverence as he departs a polling station. An elderly woman wearing traditional clothes, assisted by her daughter, hands her ballot to a poll worker. A bespeckled man over 90 years old, bedecked in his herdsmen’s traditional jacket and high leather boots, standing patiently in a long line waiting to cast his vote.
The June 28th parliamentary elections represent another breathtaking moment in Mongolia’s political evolution and the 10th time since 1990 that Mongolians cast ballots under a democratic system of governance.
Conventional wisdom was that the ruling Mongolian People’s Party (MPP), the former communist party during Soviet times, would dominate the elections. The party controlled government for the past eight years and entered the elections with a supermajority of 62 of 76 parliamentary seats. In the runup to the elections, the MPP used their incumbency to open the state’s financial floodgates and increased government subsidies to key constituencies. They also passed a sweeping new election law that expanded parliament to 126 seats— 78 seats elected by multiple non-transferable vote in 13 multi-member constituencies and 48 by closed-list proportional representation.
However, elections can produce surprises, and the Mongolian people did not disappoint. Fed up with anemic economic growth and a government corruption scandal involving the theft of a reported $13 billion in coal, Mongolians turned to the Democratic Party leaving the MPP with a slim 68 seat majority. The Democratic Party took 42 seats, and three independent parties chalked up the remaining 16 seats. Many Mongolians hailed the results as a welcome turn away from a one-party state and an opportunity to bring in a more transparent and responsive government.
We served as independent election observers. The Mongolian electoral commission did an outstanding job running an election across such a vast country—606,909 square miles. Polling stations were, for the most part, very organized and well run by government workers. The computerization of the voting process was impressive. Voters checked in to a main table where they showed an identification card and underwent a finger scan that brought up their photo on a computer screen; once identification was confirmed, they received a ballot and moved to a voting table. If they were not eligible to vote at that polling station a buzzer would sound, and they would be directed to their proper voting location.
After the ballot was filled out, the voter inserted it into a machine for tabulation and had their finger stained with an invisible ink that prevented revoting. The whole process took less than six minutes in the polling stations that we visited in the nation’s capital, Ulaanbaatar. An observer delegation from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) made similar findings. A US Congressional Research Service report also documented the elections.
In the runup to the elections (the campaign period was just 17 days), various sites on social media, the primary medium where Mongols get their news, spewed out long diatribes against DP party candidates and former government officials, including former prime minister and president, Taskia Elbegdorj, blaming them for the country’s economic problems due to the political and free market system they helped institute over thirty years ago. A line of attack born out of desperation rather than fact. Conversely, DP candidates attacked the MPP on economic mismanagement and corruption.
The elections reflected the people’s desire for change, but there are tremendous challenges confronting both governance in Mongolia and the country’s democratic future.
Political parties in Mongolia have yet to develop the philosophical underpinnings that allow readily identifiable party platforms. In short, parties need to articulate exactly what they stand for. The DP did very well in the elections, but anecdotal evidence and discussions with voters suggest their success was based more on being a “no” vote to the MPP rather than supporting the DP’s party platform.
As for the MPP, it is very hard to identify, outside of dramatically increasing funding for social programs, what priorities they would advocate for in the next four years. Developing at least rudimentary party platforms would serve to deepen the parties respective roots and give voters clearer choices.
Another critical area of importance for Mongolian politics–foreign influence. The Mongol empire was massive and remains the largest contiguous land empire in history, at one point encompassing nearly 17 percent of the world’s landmass and ruling a quarter of the global population. Its borders stretched from Korea to Hungary, and from the Mediterranean Sea to the Sea of Japan. Today, the country is landlocked; sandwiched between Russia and China–the Los Angeles, CA, equivalent of living between the notorious Crips and Bloods street gangs; a bad neighborhood. Mongolia imports just over 95% of its fuel from Russia and exports over 80% of its products to or through China; without question a deeply concerning national security problem considering the political character of those two states.
Russia’s Putin, in his desire to re-create the old Soviet empire, has Mongolia squarely in his sights. No doubt he despises having a democracy as a neighbor. He needs not invade the country like Ukraine, only use coercion, corruption, and social media to attack and co-opt Mongolia’s fragile democratic institutions, turning the government in Ulaanbaatar into an autocracy that bends to his will. In the parliamentary elections, it was widely suspected Russian websites were churning out pro-Russian propaganda to fill Mongols’ news feeds as they are now in the US.
The Chinese use of bare-knuckle political force can be exemplified in their response to the Dalai Lama’s visit to Mongolia in 2017. A week after His Holiness left the country, China imposed fees on commodity imports from Mongolia, increasing transit costs on goods passing through a border crossing into China’s northern region of Inner Mongolia—a region where millions of ethnic Mongols are being culturally oppressed and forcibly assimilated.
Significantly, just weeks before the election, Putin’s Belorussian protege, President Aleksandr Lukashenko, made a four-day state visit to Ulaanbaatar. This extended stay for a head-of-state is representative of Putin’s attempt at corralling Central Asian states into Russia’s sphere of influence. Lukashenko urged Mongolia to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a group of 10 states designed to be a counterweight to the EU and NATO.
As Mongolia continues to walk a foreign policy tightrope between its two neighbors, it is imperative that the West deepen ties not only with whatever government is seated in parliament, but also with civil society. The US can play a pivotal role leading countries such as Japan, South Korea, and those in Europe to develop deeper connectivity with Mongolia’s civil society especially in the education sector. Mongolia has one of the youngest populations in the world, with a majority being under the age of 31 and most in the 18-24 college age demographic. They can benefit tremendously from Western engagement and, as they are politically active, can serve as a critical pathway to strengthen their country’s democracy. This also fits neatly into Mongolia’s Third Neighbor foreign policy that seeks to build relationships with countries in addition to Russia and China.
Why does all this matter? Mongolia can serve as conveyor belt for spreading democratic values and ideals throughout Central Asia and even into Russia, China, and North Korea. (A Mongolian businessman related when he hired North Korean workers for a construction project they marveled at Mongolia’s economy and constantly watched international cable news in defiance of orders from North Korean political officers.)
Mongolia stands as a shining example that puts to rest the lie that democracy is a Western governance concept incompatible for Asia. It is the only system that offers the best road forward linking democracy and individual rights with free-market economics. Mongols should be commended for building on their young democratic tradition. Other democracies need to support their efforts through deeper economic and social engagement. The time to start is now.
About the authors:
- Mike Mitchell served as Mongolia Program Director at International Republican Institute and observed the June elections. He can be reached at [email protected]
- Grayden Mitchell, research assistant for this article, majors in political science at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School and also observed the June elections. He can be reached at [email protected]
