D.JARGALSAIKHAN

Elections are the name card of a country’s political structure. Mongolia recently changed its election law and will present its new card on theupcoming elections. Parliament members have been discussing and debatingover the approval of this law for many years. Today, almost all of them approach the issue philosophically: these days it is not unusual to hear almost every MP to remark with a deep sigh that there is no such thing as a perfect law,or that there are two sides to every coin. Indeed, one is bound to reflect whether the new election law can significantly change Mongolian politics and society. The renewed election law is modelled onlaws and experiences of other countries with similar small-size population, large territory, and yet not federal system. The result is the combination of majoritarian and proportional representation: 48 seats are majoritarian and remaining 28 being for proportional representation.The majority of the Mongolian public remains nonetheless critical of this new election law. They say that the disadvantage of this law is that one side will always win regardless of the outcome of a game as it gives leaders of lost political parties twice the opportunity, which means that they will slip from majoritarian to proportional part of election.

PROS AND CONS
New election law advantages include: more accurate representation of public voice with the addition of proportional system onto existing majoritarian one;increased representation of women as theycomprise one fifth of election runners;execution of election process not by political party representatives but by government officers and on work days;and first time machine counting of ballots.Noteworthy is the identification and prohibition of most manoeuvres used during previous electionsincluding distribution of cash and gifts, promotion through banquets and feasts, personal promotion outside the party agenda; furthermore, a government officer planning to run in elections must declare a leave of his position 6 months prior to the start of campaign;and finally campaign publicity materials must be published withintime and size frames predetermined by government.Still with all the advantages of the new law, one must not forget that in Mongolia, the gap is large between actions enforcedby law andprohibited ones.
New election law disadvantages: public will vote the28 seats forpolitical parties,not individuals. In a country where political institutions have not fully developed,the risk is that some party members, whom citizens would not have otherwise elected, still hold influential positions in their parties.Secondly, citizens’ selection of representations remains restrained: the two biggest political parties are not trusted and do not represent all civic voices, yet they have the power to breakdownthe parliament’s internal democratic structure by squeezing out rising new political parties, stressing that the seats in the parliament are for those with a vote of 5%or more.Finally, the biggest disadvantage of the new election law is the fact that at the time of its approval,the parliament members naturally focused on their re-elections when introducing the proportional system, which means a large portion of the population will remain under-represented, more specificallythe capital city’s ger district residents and their rights. The 34 of the 48 majoritarian seats are distributed to regions while remaining 14 aredesignated for capital city.This means, Ulaanbaatar where half of the country’s population lives will not be able to resolve many of its social issues again. The point of the proportional representation is to represent those interests that are or could not represented fully in the majoritarian system. In Switzerland,a voter receives in the mail a several pages each with a party program and one blank page in addition, so that a voter can write a name of party on it or any person name that want vote for. The blank page presents a chance for the voter to write his/her chosen party or individual runner. Thewhole election is conducted only through that piece of paper containing the voter’s opinion and sent by mail.
NEXT STEP
Since the election law was approved after three years of debate, Mongolians already started the discussion of how to choose a fair parliamentary candidate.Mongolia’s citizens are looking ahead on how to further strengthen their democracy, establish transparent and accountable government, stop the exploit of public property through political party positions, develop the economy and raise the average citizens’ living standards.
A part of Mongolian citizens proposes electing completely new people instead of the currently governing officials who with promises lies and do not fully represent own voters.Although there is no guarantee that the newly elected candidates will perform better than the current ones, public governance would slowly steer toward transparency under civic society’s pressure as unclearholes and backdoors would shrink the personal profitsof MPs from public wealth. Theother part of citizens believe that political parties should not allow members that lost in the majoritarian system elections to be included in the list of proportional representation in parliament.This would not only prevent one representative from running twice but also contribute to the renovation of political party structure via regeneration of leadership and prevent from once again granting power to those individuals whose sole tangible input while in power was to mend their private lives and illegally dwell in Bogd national park.
Citizens demand that parliament members quit allocating funds from the state budget directly and indirectly into their personal ambitions and election campaigns. The population objects to the fact that in the 2012 state budget each parliament member plotted to take3.0 billion Tugrogs. The civic society demands that political parties disclose accurate reports on election revenues and expenditures without repeating the false reports during the 2008 election where parliament members had supposedly spent 9.0 million Tugrogs each.
CITIZENS’ YEARNING DESIRE
Regardless of who becomes a parliament member, voters ultimately expect an individual who would represent them and act to meet their needs, who would comprehend that the MP was chosen to serve and not to rule over the people. In order to improve the living standards of Mongolians, parliament members are asked toact upon three main duties: to protect human rights, freedom and safety, and properties. MPs are expected to provide an environment with effective laws where citizens themselves can conduct their works and duties. These are the present requirements for Mongolia’s future growth.
Mongolia’spolitical structure is the principal distinction from neighbouring countries ruled by a single political party or an individual. Socrates said, “Marry by all means, But If you are lucky with you good wife, youwill be a happy man; but if you unlucky with bad wife, you will become a philosopher.”Mongolians remain hopeful that successive laws after election could bring Mongolia the rare luck of growing intoa neutrally positioned strategic country like Switzerland or Luxembourg.
Translated by J.Ariunaa