According to the news.mn, here is some initial results for the majoritarian 48 seats:
MPP – 23
DP – 20
MPRP-coalition – 2
Independent – 3
Female – 6 (4-DP, 1-MPP (former MP), 1-MPRP-coalition)
Incoming Businessmen – 5
Official results will be announced tomorrow at 8 am by the General Election Commission.
Julian and I arrived at the polling station nearest my apartment building at 7:45pm to observe closing. The room was a major lecture hall for the Geology/Geography institute of the Mongolian National University and as such had its own contribution to make to the atmosphere of the voting process and closing procedures. As a lecture hall it is one the most spacious venue we managed to visit. Everyone was just as attentive and professional as at the opening ceremony. We were welcomed in by the ladies working the registration table, and took our place at the tables specially marked for observers. The stage curtains in the back provided a nice backdrop for the two machines and looked vastly softer than our short wooden school chairs.
Naturally, we were not there to admire aesthetics and were happy to see everyone getting down to business. While we were expecting a final rush, there was only one voter still filling in her ballot when the entrance was closed at 8pm sharp. They then proceeded to open the blue ballot box that contained the ballots from those citizens physically unable to walk to their polling station. For our section, we had only tow such ballots, which were quickly loaded into the machine. Then the real fun began. The results were printed! I was able to obtain a separate copy just for Julian and I, and we have thus compiled the following information, based SOLELY on the results from one polling station:
DP: 459 votes, 33.77%
MPP: 421 votes, 30.98%
MPRP-MNDP: 229 votes, 16.85%
CWGP: 159 votes, 11.7%
Our polling station had a 64% voter turnout (1396 out of 2171).
The feeling on the ground now is that DP has a high chance of taking the majority, suggesting that what we saw in our section of Sukhbaatar District is at least moderately indicative of larger voting trends.
Results should be available shortly, but DP continues to tweet about wins in many provinces, further supporting our initial speculations.
The 2012 Ikh Khural Election saw the lowest rate of voter turnout in years: 65.24%.
Voter Turnout in Ikh Khural Elections since 1992
1992 — 95.6%
1996 — 92.1%
2000 — 82.4%
2004 — 80.6%
2008 — 76.5%
2012 — 65.2%
Voter turnout in Mongolia looks decreased increasingly in the past decade. Unlike previous elections which were organized in weekends the 2012 election was on Thursday (set as an official holiday). It was expected that organizing elections in weekdays will increase voter turnout.
There might be two key reasons for the low voter turnout. First, procedural factors such as voting until 20:00 but not untill 22:00 as in previous elections, the reduced period for election campaigns (30 days), and registration and voting procedures. Second, general disinterest in voting and distrust in candidates and parties.
We’ve been traveling Ulaanbaatar and the surrounding countryside for twelve hours now and have returned for a quick break before we set off to a neighbourhood polling station to observe the closing of the polls and, if possible, the opening of the “traveling ballot box” that made the rounds to collect votes from the infirm yesterday, and then, again if possible, the final reporting of the count. We’ve been in 10 polling stations so far in very different neighbourhouds from downtown Ulaanbaatar to a ger district, to Nalaikh, a small coal-mining town 45 min outside of Ulaanbaatar, to Erdene Sum, a further 40km out in the country.
Very quick observations so far, bearing in mind that we only see a slice of the proceedings and surroundings as observers:
You can observe elections of city districts live – choose districts, then observe any voting stations – Direct Observation.
Our role as election observers is a slightly different one this time in Mongolia than it had been in 2008 and 2009 when I monitored the parliamentary and presidential elections, respectively.
The biggest difference will be the presence of accredited domestic election observers and the shift from paper ballots to electronic voting machines.
This year’s election law introduce the status of domestic election observers who are nominated by civil society organizations. I have heard some discussions that there will be numerous observers of this kind which is wonderful. Their observations will hopefully not only contribute to a fair election, but will also dispel some of the nearly constant talk of election fraud that has marred previous elections and underlines confidence in democracy.
Party observers will still play an important role in election observation, but I suspect that many Mongolians themselves will see them as fulfilling a role of enforcers, rather than as independent reporters on procedures. Also, party observers are exclusively focused on the proceedings in the polling station itself as opposed to observers who can also try to survey the immediate neighbourhood of a polling station.
Inside the polling station, the focus of my observation will clearly be on the registration procedures. This will probably be the greatest source of irregularities and one of the areas that allegations of fraud have focused on in the past with claims of multiple registrations by individuals, etc.
For voters who have recently moved, re-registered, or lost their identification papers, they will come to the polls with a new smart-ID that includes biometric information and can be read in the polling station. The majority of voters, however, will come with paper identification and voter registration documents. These will then be checked against voter registration lists. Some problems will surely arise from voters who claim to have moved into an electoral riding, but do not appear on the voter rolls.
Where there have been allegations of multiple voting in the past, they have focused on re-registrations in different electoral ridings which is presumed to be possible as the polling station registration does not have access to any central database of voters. However, in the last election, voters’ pinkies were marked with indelible ink (it sure did not wash off my finger for several days) and hands were therefore checked at registration. Today, identification papers of voters will be marked after they vote. Also, note that the election commissions running local polling stations do not include party members this time, at least nominally, so that the registration process will hopefully be more transparent and less partial.
When it comes to allegations of past fraud, the DP has been loudest in their allegations. However, when I have pressed party officials after previous elections and in the last several days, allegations always remain just that, allegations, and there is very little concrete evidence that is provided. I personally find this extremely harmful to the development of a democratic consciousness and trust in public institutions. When irregularities or fraud occur, that needs to be noted immediately, but perhaps more importantly it needs to be documented.
In this election, the General Election Commission is apparently offering to refund any voter who is offered a bribe or payment for their vote the amount of this payment and will then charge the candidate who has offered the original payment. This is meant to encourage voters who find themselves in difficult economic circumstances to report fraud, though it is unclear to me, how a voter might demonstrate that s/he has been offered a payment.
Interestingly, party official at higher levels of the DP appear to be very concerned about election fraud and the “system” that the MPP runs in the countryside, while local party officials in baks and sums are much less concerned pointing out that they know all the voters in their riding and that fraudulent re-registrations are thus nearly impossible. Their knowledge of local voters also means that they have a good sense of how the voting will go and therefore would notice surprising results clearly.
The introduction of electronic voting machines will mean that these machines (one per balloting station) will produce a count of the votes immediately following the last voter. Apparently (today’s observations will confirm this) they machines will print out a report of the voting which can then be delivered (by phone) to central election authorities. Party observers in the polling stations will be privy to this count as well and will thus be able to report back to party headquarters. It is this speedy counting that leads many to expect results as quickly as 45 min after the closing of the polls.
In case there are any doubts about the counting, the voting machines also retain the original paper ballots inserted so that a manual re-count is possible. The extensive voter education has suggested that the machines are quite easy to use, though local officials have voiced concerns about seniors’ ability to fill in the bubbles of the ballot correctly. It appears that two polling stations within each of the 26 electoral ridings will be randomly selected for a manual recount and that this recount can be observed. However, there is no obvious indication how one might find out which ballot stations have been selected for this manual recount.
Of course, the voting machines will also represent something of a (literally) black box to voters and it remains to be seen to what extent voters will trust a counting mechanism that neither they, nor anyone else can observe directly.
With all of these considerations, my focus of observation today will be the registration process.
When I started thinking about the upcoming election and likely scenarios, I had initially excluded the possibility that either the DP or the MPP would join in a coalition with the MPRP. Maybe that was hasty…
As things are shaping up now on the eve of the election, a DP victory seems to be more and more likely, but the guesses around town fluctuate all the way from a straight majority (40+ seats) to a bare plurality (30+ seats). At the same time, predictions for the CWGP are not that optimistic with estimates ranging from a single seat to an upper limit of 5.
If these guesses are right (and given the quality of the polls available), guestimating is as good as it gets at the moment, coalition speculation is taking a different turn.
If CWGP as a possible and most likely preferred coalition partner is held to no more than 5 seats (remember, that is an upper limit, so optimistic scenario), the DP would need at least 35 seats which would be a significant victory.
That would leave the question of “grand coalition” with the MPP or, all of a sudden, a coalition with the MPRP. I had assume that the latter was out of the question even in Spring and even more so with events surrounding frm president Enkhbayar since then. [As an aside, the supreme court postponed a decision on Enkhbayar’s case against the General Election Commission on the rejection of his candidacy, making any decision on this matter impossible for tomorrow’s poll.] My assumption had been that MPRP was politically anathema to the DP and that there as too much bad blood between MPP and MPRP as well.
However, during our countryside trip to Tov Aimag, a DP campaign organizer in a private moment intimated that there are active discussions of a coalition with the MPRP. Her/his sense was that the MPRP could be satisfied with a single ministry and some kind of pardon (quietly, I assume) for Enkhbayar. This struck me as odd since I cannot believe that the DP’s voters would accept this kind of horse-trading/backroom dealing. But after I returned, I learned that well-known columnist, Baabar (Bat-Erdeniin Batbayar) had posted his version of election scenarios on-line. This post had appeared at http://baabar.niitlelch.mn/content/4241.shtml but has since turned “404 File not Found”.
Here’s a rough English version [with many thanks to the anonymous, but trusted translator] of his “Scenario 4” (after a DP majority, a DP-CWGP coalition, and an MPP-MPRP coalition in likelihood):
Scenario 4 would be a coalition government formed by the DP with the MPRP. 10 out of the first 12 persons on the MPRP party slate had previous connections with the DP in some way. From this point of view, the MPRP is more related to the DP than to the MPP. However, if the DP is to ally with the MPRP, it would be conditional on the MPRP abandoning Enkhbayar and Enkhsaihan.
I know too little about the internal workings of the MPRP to estimate whether a jettisoning of Enkhbayar and Enkhsaikhan is a possibility, especially given the loyalty that Enkhbayar clearly commands among many of the party faithful as we saw in city and countryside campaign offices.
Scenario 3 of a MPP and MPRP coalition is also intriguing, though it relies heavily on the alignment of various factions within the MPP which are also beyond my understanding. According to the Baabar post, this scenario would result in Enkhtuvshin emerging as PM, but also would require a side-lining of the MPRP.
By contrast, any scenarios not involving a MPRP coalition would most likely lead to the MPRP being a noisy opposition party for the coming four years, with frequent outbursts, appeals to populism and a non-negligible threat to Mongolians’ trust in parliament.
Some days ago, I considered whether we might take the share of the party vote achieved by the MPRP in tomorrow’s election as an indication of (a rise of) populism in Mongolian politics. Having had the opportunity to speak to a few supporters of the MPRP in the past several days of visiting campaign offices and candidates, I do think that support for the party indicates the appeal of populist and simplistic interpretations of developments and proposals for policies.
The Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party was Mongolia’s governing party for the entire state socialist period, of course, and managed to transform itself into a political force that continued to dominate democratic politics as well, as Morris Rossabi has described in his 2009 Pacific Affairs article, “The Transmogrification of a Communist Party“. Since the publication of this article, the MPRP has been transmogrifying further.
In 2009 Enkhbayar lost his bid for re-election as Mongolia’s president following a campaign that suggested that the MPRP was not fully behind their candidate. Partly to avoid any wrangling and unrest about the election results, then-PM Bayar conceded defeat in this election very quickly and Enkhbayar was further abandoned by the party. This clearly left him feeling very aggrieved. In 2010, party leader and prime minister Batbold received support from the party for his decision to rename the party Mongolian People’s Party (MPP or МАН).
Enkhbayar at this point decided to spin off his own party and successfully fought a legal battle to be allowed to use MPRP as the name for this new party. The party has thus assumed the mantel of a 90-year history at least in part from the MPP which continues to control the party’s resources, logo, etc.
In the current election the MPRP has formed a coalition with a minor party, but is really emerging as Enkhbayar’s party, particularly given the saga of his arrest on corruption charges, and subsequent denial of his candidacy on the MPRP’s party list.
In speaking to local campaign workers it is clear that their attachment to the MPRP is an attachment to Enkhbayar’s leadership. Some of them even referred to the party as “Enkhbayar’s Party” rather than MPRP.
It is also clear that the message that the party faithful have been given/are spinning out of Enkhbayar’s arrest and subsequent trial is one of resistance to international and capitalist forces and a role for Enkhbayar as a champion for the common people and for the homeland. These are all the hallmarks of populism and elements of resource nationalism as well.
Most campaign offices that we visited were staffed by elderly Mongolians. While they were quick to assure us that the MPRP is a very young party, this was not at all evident in the campaign offices. A campaign rally we attended on June 25 on the western outskirts of Ulaanbaatar was also dominated by the elderly, though it included many younger campaign workers who were surely paid, as they are by other parties.
One campaign worker we met in the countryside was perhaps most eloquent in elaborating Enkhbayar’s appeal when she spoke of the fascist regime and oligarchs that were after Enkhbayar and the need to restore ownership over mineral resources to the Mongolian people. While the party can hardly be held responsible for the statements of an individual campaign worker in a somewhat far-flung location, the sense we got from less explicit discussions with other campaign workers was also one of a simplistic understanding of ownership of mineral resources, due process of law, corruption and political leadership.
When the results of the election will be announced, I will thus be interpreting the share won by the MPRP as an indication of the appeal of populism. Other elements in the MPRP vote will of course also be some conservatism in the countryside where the MPRP brand will carry a lot of weight and some protest given Enkhbayar’s role as a thorn in the established parties side.
If the MPRP emerges as the third largest party in the election and if this translates into a significant number of seats (most likely largely through proportional representation, rather than from first-past-the-post districts), the party will become a loud voice for populism and resource nationalism in the next parliament.
[I realize that this post will quickly generate a response from Enkhbayar’s very efficient and professional PR squad, masquerading as an “ordinary Mongolia who has been a long-time supporter of the DP”. Many colleagues and also numerous journalists have been receiving PR packages and reactions to things we write for some weeks now. I want to emphasize that I do not consider myself to be “anti-Enkhbayar” but that I am trying to describe my (limited) observations. The one time I met Enkhbayar when he was president he was certainly friendly and also gave a nice, though largely ceremonial (appropriate to the occasion) speech. I will approve comments on this post that make a substantive point, but not those that merely rant and accuse me of various sources of bias.]
The importance of the Ulaanbaatar City Council election was never as high as this year’s. This is apparent from the extent of election campaigns, media coverage, and the number of parties and candidates.
The changes in the election procedures, namely the organization of the City Council election concurrently with the Ikh Khural election and the introduction of the party-list system, have important implications.
The Democratic Party and other opposition parties have never been a strong voice in the City Council. The same is true for the aimag and district councils. The Mongolian People’s Party has held a majority in the City Council during the past twenty years. Nine of the current 45 members of the City Council are from the DP and the remaining from the MPP.
Recent public opinion polls indicate a strong likelihood that the DP will gain more seats in the Ikh Khural than other political parties. The DP is striving to gain much from this opportunity and win the City Council Election. E. Bat-Uul’s decision to lead the DP in the City Council Election promises more votes for the DP. Bat-Uul who was elected from Selenge province in the 2008 Ikh Khural election has broad support among the electorate and the DP members. He competed for the nomination for the the Presidential Election from the DP in 2009. Recent polls show that he is among the top ten politicians in Mongolia.
More importantly, Bat-Uul’s ideas and activities on the land rights seems to be more appealing to the public and ger district settlers in particular. He has been a strong opponent of the policy to move ger district settlers into apartment buildings by either exchanging their land by rooms in those apartment buildings or buying their land directly. The DP’s election campaign for the City Council is mainly framed by Bat-Uul’s idea that building infrastructure (water and plumbing infrastructure etc.) for ger district settlers to allow them to build their own houses and apartments is a better way to deal with the problems of air pollution and overcrowding.
A ‘leaked’ survey done by the MPP’s research institute in 2011 ranked the most urgent problems in Ulaanbaatar:
Smoke, air pollution 58.0
Drinking, alcoholism 51.7
Unemployment 42.2
Inflation 34.7
Poverty, street people 32.9
Crime, burglary 29.1
Building and fixing new roads 22.4
Street lighting, city planning 21.2
Transportation deficiency 17.6
Bureaucracy in the district and sub-district administration 17.2
D Munkhbayar, the mayor of Ulaanbaatar city and the chairman of the MPP of Ulaanbaatar city, is leading the MPP in the City Council Election. The MPP seems to be trying to send a message to the lectorate that Munkhbayar is an experienced manager who can handle the complex urban problems.
Last week the Mongolian National Broadcasting (the official, state-funded television channel) organized a debate among the political parties in the City Council election. It was the only official televised debate during this election campaign (either of the Ikh Khural and the City Council). Only 2 minutes were given the participants to answer to each question from the organizers. So it was not truly a debate. The impression that I had from the presentations and answers of the party leaders during the debate was that there were so much overlap among their ideas and promises and so little to draw a distinction except Bat-Uul’s repeated message on the infrastructure for ger districts. An interesting message that some party leaders like Gankhuu from the CWGP was that Ulaanbaatar city is their ‘local homeland’. Like Bat-Uul, Gankhuu’s parents are those people who settled in Ulaanbaatar in the 1950s or earlier.
Being organized concurrently with the Ikh khural Election, the City Council Election is more likely to have a higher voter turnout this year than the previous elections. Electoral support for the MPP has been strong among the elderly and their relatively high levels of participation in the local council elections seemed to be have a crucial role in the MPP’s wins. The DP seems to have relatively broader support among young people, but they seem to have little interest in the local elections. The CWGP seems to have the same problem. So, these parties may gain more from a higher voter turnout.
10 days ago before I arrived in Mongolia, I wrote about some of the things I was keeping an eye on in the election. One of the issues I am paying attention to is whether corruption has become more of a topic for public discussions, rather than a subject of conspiracy theories and widely shared assumptions.
The short answer from the past two days of chasing after campaign events and visiting campaign offices is: no, corruption has not become a major topic for voters’ attention.
The message on this has been clearest at the local level. Corruption – as an issue of election-related political concern – is clearly trumped by “more immediate” livelihood concerns like property rights, pollution, and unemployment.
One of the aspects of the current election that is new is that it is being held concurrently with the Ulaanbaatar city council elections. In this election, there are 45 seats up for grabs, 30 through a first-past-the-post election in ridings, 15 through proportional representation akin to the party lists for the national election.
My understanding is that the six national ridings for Ulaanbaatar are subdivided five times each to yield 30 city-wide ridings.
The mayor is a member of and elected by the city council. Currently, this is Munkhbayar of the MPP. On the DP side, Bat-Uul, long-time democracy activist and DP leader, is the most prominent candidate.
We’ve visited a small number of city election campaign managers and election offices that form the basis for my impressions here.
In all of these visits, corruption was not mentioned as a top concern for voters. City election candidates obviously have much more direct contact with (potential) voters than candidates running for parliament and were thus a good source for answers about questions regarding the issues raised by voters.
Concrete and often very local topics clearly dominate these discussions and corruption only comes up in this context in regards to very specific issues, especially land rights. This is true even for the Civil Will – Green Party which might have stood to gain the most from a public focus on corruption as I had speculated previously. CWGP officials emphasize that anti-corruption was still an important or even central part of their agenda, but that this did not resonate with voters who are overwhelmingly concerned with seemingly more immediate issues.
Basic urban infrastructure, sewage, drinking water, electricity, were mentioned frequently as was garbage pick-up, the high number of stray dogs, and similar, quasi-environmental concerns.
At the national level, by contrast, corruption is mentioned as an issue, especially by the DP that continues to portray itself as representing politics of a different, including a non-corrupt kind.
If corruption does not emerge as a major issue and factor in this election, what does that mean? It reduces my expectations for success of the Civil Will – Green Party significantly. Some interlocutors here in Ulaanbaatar have expressed a fear that CWGP might not clear the 5% hurdle in the proportional representation voting (which would suggest that the nearly universally admired Oyun would loose her seat), most likely suggesting that they would lose their presence in the Ikh Khural entirely. I still think that the party will make it into parliament, but probably with fewer seats than I might have initially expected.
By contrast a lack of a focus on corruption might boost the protest vote to the MPRP.
Julian and I have just returned from the Democratic Party Rally in Yarmag, Han-Uul District where the party’s two Parliamentary candidates L. Bold and Ts. Oyungerel as well as E. Bat-Uul, running for UB Parliament, made speeches in support of the party and their campaigns. The rally provided interesting insights into the last couple days of campaigning.
My general sense was that even after 20 years on the Mongolian political scene, the DP still uses its status as the “new guys in town” to draw distinctions between itself and the MPP. They still seem to see themselves as the new and distinctly modern party. Directly related to this “newness” was reference to the DP as corruption-free, fighting for a corruption-free Ulaanbaatar and country. Also tied to this so-called modernity is the clear reference to Western-style democracies, namely the United States of America. During the introductions of Bold and Oyungerel, the announcer made particular mention of their US education as a sign of their legitimacy to lead. Furthermore, L. Bold himself made a bold statement by telling the audience that Mongolia had two choices in this important intersection in its political and economic development: 1) the Chinese path; 2) the American path. This was in reference not only to the country’s economic development model, but also to human rights and liberty. The DP is promising a “Mongolian Dream” (paralleling the “American Dream”) whereby the people have the ability to achieve their wants, needs, and aspirations. The central DP central slogan comes to life when the speakers proclaimed that Mongolians want to “live like a (real) person and develop like a (real) country” (Хүн шиг амьдрмаар байна, Улс шиг хөгжимөөр байна!). The people’s thoughts and ideas are the party’s thoughts/ideas, and their dreams are the DP’s dreams, or so we were told.
Surprisingly, both the rally and the general meet-and-greet that preceded it brought up a topic that I not previously considered a pressing political issue: land rights. This surprisingly hot-button issue may mark a key distinction between the MPP and DP. The MPP seems to be more interested in working as quickly as possible to re-organize and in some cases replace the ger districts as well the quickly developing regions near Zaisan Monument (Зайсан Цогцолбор). The DP is running on a platform of protecting individual land rights and even extending rights to ger district citizens so as to allow a market driven resolution that benefits as many people as possible without the state forcing anyone’s hand. Admittedly, this is not an issue that I have any experience in, and I did not expect this issue to come up since it has not made it into any of the elections materials that I have seen. Clearly, it is an area for further thought, and perhaps further blog posts.
The proceedings of the rally where rather standard, with the obligatory cheers and whistling, politicians followed by such cultural icons as actor Amaraa and a rather amusing character in a bright orange deel. Held near the airport, both Julian Dierkes and myself where delighted by the clean air full of the uniquely characteristic smell of the Mongolian countryside. The rally was attended by approximately 500 people, presumably mostly from the ger district across the street. Interestingly enough, the event included a parachuter and concluded with a full on fireworks show. These seemed rather poorly planned and distracted from the candidates themselves, but the crowd seemed to enjoy it anyways. All in all, a seemingly successful rally that proved very informative on DP strategy.
This year, two major political parties expanded their election campaign with music. The Mongolian People’s Party started with a new song, “We All One Mongol” [Бид бүгд нэг монгол], which includes almost all Mongolian well-known stars. Later the MPP projected another one, “Be Mongolian” [Монголоороо байгаасай], which targets younger audiences.
The Democratic Party aired its new campaign song, “Eternal Nation” [Өнө мөнх орон], sung by younger singers than the MPP approach to include representatives from all generations. To equalize its competition with the MPP, the DP introduced “Oluullaa – Khaluun Elgen Nutag”, which is modified a well known Mongolian patriotic song. The DP also starts airing the virtual version of the “Song of the Bell” – the symbolic song of the democratic transition in the late 1980s. Although the clip does not carry the DP symbols, the song is often related with the DP.
All songs are refreshing, attempting to send different messages and images to different audience. However, smaller parties are not engaged in the costly song-making competition.
This morning, Ganhuyag (MPP candidate in 23rd electoral district), postponed his usual 7h morning run to a later hour, around 10h to jog together with PM Batbold (blue hat/shirt in photo) who is celebrating his birthday. A group of around 30-50 supporters joined them for the run that led them from Sukhbaatar Square maybe 4km to Zaisan (Soviet memorial).
As is perhaps typical of campaign events with high officials, supporters of Ganhuyag had gathered on Sukhbaatar Sq. 90 minutes earlier to get ready. Here Ganhuyag rallies his supporters ahead of the PM’s arrival.
On the southern side of the Square, the Mongolian military was preparing for a ceremony of graduation from officers’ school.
Following some Mongolian Olympic fun yesterday, we had a number of discussions with others trying to follow the election here in Ulaanbaatar about the relationship between individual candidates and political parties.
I think that everyone continues to agree that the major parties do not generally stand for any specific ideological orientation, though they do present themselves differently with some of their policies.
While the MPP seems to be emphasizing some of the concrete plans it has to improve citizens’ lives, the DP is portraying itself as a different kind of a political party with an emphasis of dedication to citizens and clean government.
On the outdoor advertising that we described in an earlier post, a very large share of the posters are for individual candidates, though showing the party logo. Thus they are aimed at voters in a specific riding and their candidate vote, perhaps assuming that the party vote might benefit from a preference for a specific party candidate. This focus on candidates is also evident in the flyers that are distributed to households and arrive in our apartment as well.
By contrast, advertising on TV is much broader and much more focused on the parties. In this, we learned a lot from Mike Kohn (who lives in Ulaanbaatar, blogs about its parks, tweets, and writes for Agence France Press). In these advertisements, it is generally the parties that are at the centre of the message. Frequently these TV ads are spiced up with appearances by pop stars. The airwaves seem to be dominated by ads from the DP and MPP with other parties only making rare appearances.
The differences in advertising strategies are interesting in that a changed electoral system (the introduction of 28/76 proportional representation seats) implies a change in strategy and resource allocation by the parties and this seems to be visible in these campaign strategies at least by the big parties.
For both parties, their leaders (Batbold for the MPP, Altankhuyag for the DP) do not seem to be playing a particularly prominent role, they are not Spitzenkandidaten as party leaders are in Germany, for example, where they run for seats in parliament, but also present themselves as future chancellors or state premiers.
A number of Mongolian parliamentarians and candidates are very active on Twitter. Some are even very active and clearly rely on Twitter as a way to communicate with fellow candidates but also to be in dialogue with some voters. While I haven’t explored Facebook as much in this regard, the level of activity there seems to be high as well. Surprisingly, however, social media do not make an appearance in party ads at all. There are no URLs, Twitter or Facebook handles listed on campaign posters or in TV ads, though they do make an occasional appearance on materials from the smaller parties or individual candidates’ websites. Their is virtually no social media presence by the parties themselves as far as I can tell.
I remember being shocked during my first trip to Mongolia in 2008 when walking along Peace Avenue, I saw a car belong to the unofficial political group/gang Blue Mongol (Хөх Монгол) sporting a prominent and rather taboo swastika. After asking around, I learned that this was one of several ultra-nationalists groups to be found in UB. At the same time, graffitti on various walls through the city featuring a swastika with the initials М.Ү.Н. (Монгол Үндесний Нам/Mongolian National Party) was readily visible to even the most inattentive observer. In 2009, such vandalism and the same Blue Mongol car could be spotted almost daily, and I remember hearing news reports of Chinese business men attacked, Korean tourists beat, and Mongolian women having their head shaved as punishment for dating a foreign (i.e. Chinese) man. Still other cars and vans with similar messages started popping up, and in the center of the city one could readily spot groups of young men with the tell-tell tattoos and hairstyles readily associated with ultra-nationalist gangs. In the same year, the BBC featured a couple of stories on another nationalist group, Даяар Монгол (roughly translated, Worldwide Mongolians). In 2010, not much had changed. However, as I was telling this story to friends, they asked what the situation was today and I realized an important development: not only have I seen far less М.Ү.Н. tagging, nor have I seen more than a couple of (admittedly hastely profiled) nationalists, I have not once seen that notorious Blue Mongol car that started my casual observations on this topic 5 years ago.
My feeling is that the visibility of such groups have declined in the past couple years, and perhaps some of their political activities have been checked by the authorities to ensure a secure environment for the upcoming elections. At the same, less visibility does not mean the end to xenophobic voilence. Random attacks against foreign business men and women, NGO workers, and so on are still to be heard, and anti-Chinese statements make up a significant proportion of graffitti. So, the question remains: What happened to the visibility of such groups? Have they spintered apart as such de facto gangs are prone to do? Do they lack any larger support structors to maintain themselves? Obviously these questions are not easy to answer, but the observations above might have a lot to say all on their own.
For an extended blog posting on ethnic nationalism in Mongolia as tied to fears of ethnic survival, visit:
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