Preliminary results and a list of names are available from News.mn here (in Mongolian). The minority parties are conspicuously absent from the list of elected. Not a single seat. There is one independent on this list. Our Foreign Minister S.Oyun (Civil Will Party) is running for the last of 4 seats against a DP nominee in UB's Songinokhairkhan district. This move from the "first-past the post" system to a multi-member constituency system has confused many people. The change in the electoral system combined with the large number of minority parties may have cost DP the election, with many votes going to independents and minority parties.
The Democratic Party is expected to hold a press conference at 12pm today to issue public statements disputing the election results.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Mongolia - Election 2008 updates: Election Results to be Disputed?
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fully agree
I don't agree.
If you say the change in the electoral system had effects on the results of the elections,then going by the same arguement, it should have cost the MPRP the elections as well. Meaning alot more people not supporting either DP or MPRP, while voting for minor parties and independents. But that was not the case. MPRP has 45 seats now according to preliminary results. It just bascially means majority of the Mongolians favoured MPRP. If in fact, the change in electorial system had effects on the election, then MPRP or DP would not have manged to form majority in the parliament. And i still stand by the arguement that although alot of people have lost in MPRP, the party itself, people still chose to vote for MPRP because they believe in in Bayar more than Elbegdorj.
to the person above: I highly doubt that more than 50% of the total votes went to the MPRP. On the other hand they manage to get over 60% of the seats. We should change to proportional system some time soon.
Well, what I meant by the electoral system favouring the MPRP is this. the MPRP supporters will still vote for the MPRP, but the democrat-leaning supporters would be divided amongst a number of other candidates from minor parties as well as independents. As a result, the DP candidate gets fewer votes, and the independents / minor party candidates get some votes, but not enough to get them ahead.
The system does not cost the MPRP any votes, mainly because MPRP does not have any other major factions that separated to form political parties, while DP does. So the voters are divided not as pro-MPRP / pro-DP, but rather as pro-MPRP / anti-MPRP.
Bilguun: then i agree that the division due to internal differences in the DP cost the elections. Will suffice to say that they caused their own downfall. So what noise are they making now? Shouldn't they blame themselves? Their supporters should then understand this and not vent their anger at the elections committee (where i am not denying they have made somemistakes) or accusing MPRP of cheating. There were many many observers at each polling station during the counting of ballots. What were these observers doing if the so called cheating occurred??
Batzorig: One of Bayar's goal when he was elected as the Prime Minister end of last year was to change the election system. This did not get approved. All parties held their election campaign under the same rules. If there is a disadvantage to the overall election process, all parties faced the same problems. Only means that MPRP better strategised and as a result they have won. Also, you can correct me on this, but those elected from each district are the ones who got the most votes from the people? There is no percentage to fulfill like getting how many percents of the votes. So if MPRP members are elected, only means they got majority vote. I agree that the system needs to be changed. But such is the circumstances now, someone has to be elected into the parliament to make changes. We make do with what we have now.
The only thing Mongolians are hoping now is Bayar and his party will do as promised. There is really no need for protests. Unless, they can prove with evidence that MPRP interferred with the results otherwise it is all empty anger.
I read somewhere that DP was going to hold a press conference to present cases of unfair practices and vote tampering during the election process. But makes no sense for me to speculate on these things.
Nevertheless, I have to say that MPRP as a party has a better unified front. The next 4 years will be the main test of MPRP, now that they are the majority.
In general, I am very surprised at the outcome, as all predictions and expectations seemed to indicate a victory for the DP.
Assuming fair elections, the conflict between DP and its ex-members is the only reasonable explanation I can come up with for their loss. They definitely had enough publicity and media coverage.
Can you post the names of the winning female candidates from the DP? I am curious as to who has won.
I think the potential disadvantage of the new voting system is this: Assume that in the previous election three electoral districts within one aimag were very pro-MPRP (let's assume 75% for MPRP, 25% for DP), while one had a popular DP-candidate and was very pro-DP (let's assume 25% for MPRP, 75% for DP). Then the aimag would have three MPs from the MPRP, and one from the DP. With the four electoral districts fused into one, and assuming about equal size of the previous districts, some 62.5% ( (3*75%+25%)/4 ) of the voters would make four crosses for the MPRP, 37.5% would make four crosses for the DP, leading to four (instead of three) seats for the MPRP, and none (instead of one) for the DP.
I don't know how realistic this scenario is, or if and how such scenarious are evened out over a total of 26 (?) electoral districts. I also don't think this election system is more unfair than any other, it just has some different dynamics. How many % of the vote did Enkhbayar get in 2005, and how many % of the presidential seats did he get?
Of course, if we'd follow pre-election opinion polls, the MPRP should have had a sound victory in 2004. Back then they cried wolf, now it looks this part has been taken by someone else.