Among the data that the General Election Commission has made available quickly is the breakdown by Aimag and Ulaanbaatar ridings.
It’s quite clear from a glance that Elbegdorj has won this election on the strength of his showing in the capital, but there are other patterns in the regional distribution as well.
[In the discussion below, I have rounded some figures resulting from re-calculations. I have based these calculations on the data supplied by the GEC and would be happy to send the spreadsheet that I’ve assembled to anyone to check my calculations.]
MPRP – Udval
Let’s first look at Udval’s result for the election. With just over 80,000 voters, Udval received 6.5% of the votes nationwide.
Udval received the most votes in Arkhangai (12.98%), Bulgan (10.29%), and Selenge (9.79%). This shows a bit of a regional concentration in that these are neighbouring aimags to the West and North of Ulaanbaatar. She received the least votes Khentii (2.55%), the Bagakhangai district of Ulaanbaatar (3.02%), and Zavkhan (3.04%). Noticeable among these is Khentii, Bat-Erdene’s home province where he did extremely well. This relationship suggests that Udval and Bat-Erdene split votes in many jurisdictions.
In terms of the absolute number of votes – the only figure that matters for the outcome of the election – Udval received the most votes in the Ulaanbaatar city districts of Songinokhairkhan, Bayanzurkh, and Bayangol. If we add up her votes from the big six city districts, these amount to over 30,000 out of her total of over 80,000.
MPP – Bat-Erdene
Bat-Erdene received by far the greatest share of the vote in his home province of Khentii with 62.5%. In the home province race, he thus beat Elbegdorj for whom 61.17% of his fellow Khovd-ians voted. Surely the MPP supporters in Bat-Erdene’s hometown of Omnodergel – shown here at their final rally on Monday evening on a hill overlooking their broad valley – were among those Khentii voters supporting Bat-Erdene.
After Khentii, Bat-Erdene’s highest vote shares were from Sukhbaatar aimag (54.49%), and from Dundgobi (53.81%). Note that Bat-Erdene received high shares of votes all across the Gobi desert, that is across the South of the country.
In addition to his top three vote getters, he won a majority of the vote in Dornogobi, Bagakhangai, and Tov, six electoral districts in total. But these districts where Bat-Erdene won a majority only add up to 76,500 votes.
Beyond these six districts, Bat-Erdene won a plurality of votes in Gobi-Sumber, Baganuur, Bulgan, and Gobi-Altai. If we add these to the districts where he won a majority, these votes total 109,000 or less than 20% of his nation-wide vote total.
Numerically, Bat-Erdene (like the other candidates) won the most votes in the six big city districts. These total to 205,000 or roughly 40% of his nationwide votes.
DP – Elbegdorj
Elbegdorj received his highest share of votes among the diaspora, at 64.57%, followed by Khovd (61.17%) and the Bayangol city district (57.08%). He won a majority in these three districts and 11 more: Bayanzurkh, Sukhbaatar district, Khan-Uul, Songinokhairkhan, Chingeltei, Bayan-Olgi, Dornod, Khuvsgul, Orkhon, Nalaikh, and Darkhan-Uul. These majority districts add up to 427,000 votes just over two thirds of his total of 623,000.
Districts were Elbegdorj won a plurality of votes are: Zavkhan, Bayankhongor, Selenge. Majority and plurality districts added together contributed 479,000 votes or more than 3/4 of his total.
Beyond the city districts, Elbegdorj did particularly well in the West (Khovd, Bayan-Olgi, Khuvsgul, though not in Gobi-Altai where the DP has never fared very well.
The lowest share of votes for the DP came from Khentii (33.37%), Dundgobi, and Dornogobi.
Ulaanbaatar vs. Countryside
The DP has done far better in the city than in the countryside in past elections. While there are pockets of DP support outside of Ulaanbaatar, the large number of voters in the city (even outpacing turnout in the countryside) helped Elbegdorj to his overall win. If we add all the Ulaanbaatar city districts together, these contributed roughly half (306,000) of his overall votes. This compares with 218,000 votes for Bat-Erdene and 32,000 votes for Udval. The difference between Bat-Erdene and Elbegdorj amounts to 88,000 votes nearly totalling the overall differences between their votes (102,000). If we compare vote shares for all the city districts combined, Elbegdorj received 55%, Bat-Erdene 39.19% and Udval 5.8%.
If we add all the non-Ulaanbaatar districts minus the diaspora, respective shares are 47.36% for Elbegdorj, 45.4% for Bat-Erdene, 7.25% for Udval. Using this same definition of country vs. city, 54.23% of all votes were cast outside of Ulaanbaatar.
While Elbegdorj clearly performed better in the city, he still won a plurality of countryside votes, beating Bat-Erdene by 13,000 votes.
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Hey, I made a map based on the elections results here. Though it might interest you.