ULAANBAATAR, Mongolia (AP) — Voters in Mongolia will elect a new parliament on Friday in their landlocked democracy wedged between China and Russia, two much larger authoritarian states.
At stake are 126 seats in an expanded parliament, 50 more than in the previous elections in 2020. That battle was won by the Mongolian People’s Party in a landslide. The ruling party still appears to have the upper hand, but other parties may be able to take advantage of voters’ dissatisfaction to eat into the majority.
There are 2,198 polling stations spread across the sparsely populated country, which is geographically large but has a population of just 3.4 million. Polls close at 10:00 p.m. (14:00 GMT) and preliminary results are expected early Saturday morning.
Mongolia became a democracy in 1990, ending more than six decades of one-party communist rule under the same People’s Party now in power. The ruling party has transformed into a center-left party during the democratic era.
The largest opposition party is the Democratic Party, a center-right party, although the HUN Party has emerged as a potential third party in these elections.
Many voters have come to see parliament as “thieves” out to enrich themselves and their business friends through the state treasury. Corruption scandals have eroded confidence in the government and political parties.
Besides corruption, the main issues for voters include unemployment and inflation in an economy rocked first by the Covid-19 pandemic and then by the fallout from the war in Ukraine. The country’s herders were also hit by a “dzud” this year, a combination of severe weather and drought that killed 7.1 million animals.
