Jun. 27 – Mongolia’s presidential elections were held yesterday, and in a more closely fought contest than had been anticipated, the Harvard-educated Tsakhia Elbegdorj hung on to win a second term. Elbegdorj, 50, who has served as president since 2009, was the overwhelming favorite in the contest, which took place amid worries about Mongolia’s faltering economy, growing sense of unease over corruption as well as the growing influence of foreign mining firms on State policy.
The commission said Elbegdorj received 50.23 percent of the votes, beating former wrestling champion Bat-Erdene Badmaanyambuu of the Mongolian People’s Party, and Health Minister Udval Natsag of the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party. The lower-than-expected margin of victory could be traced to low turnout, according to Julian Dierkes, an expert in Mongolian politics at the University of British Columbia, adding that participation was 10 percent lower than the last election.
“The consensus was that Elbegdorj was winning, and I suspect that a lot of potential voters thought he was winning anyway, and didn’t vote,” said Dierkes, who is in Ulaanbaatar to monitor the election. Poor weather may have also contributed to the low turnout, with torrential rain in the capital. Vodka was also banned from being served in Ulaanbaatar during yesterday’s vote.
Elbegdorj’s narrow victory, even if it isn’t contested by the opposition, is not expected to allay the concerns of foreign investors worried about growing government interference in the country’s booming mining sector.
The win preserves the dominance of the Mongolian Democratic Party, which won the most seats (though not an absolute majority) in last year’s Parliamentary vote, and heads a coalition government keen to regulate foreign investment. Elbegdorj is a free-market advocate, but his government has increasingly adopted a more “resource nationalist” approach, with laws to give the country a bigger stake in “strategic assets,” such as mines.
Mongolia’s economy grew 12 percent last year and 17 percent in 2011, as mining investment poured in and mineral exports to China surged. However, the government has been dogged by corruption issues and ongoing spats concerning shareholders at the nation’s largest bank, the Golomt Bank.
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