Parliamentary elections were held in

Mongolia Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south and southeast. It covers an area of , with a population of 3.5 million, making it the world's List of countries and dependencies by po ...

on 29 June 2016. The governing Democratic Party lost to a landslide victory of the

Mongolian People's Party The Mongolian People's Party (MPP) is a social democratic political party in Mongolia. It was founded as a communist party in 1920 by Mongolian revolutionaries and is the oldest political party in Mongolia. The party played an important role ...

, retaining only nine of 76 seats in the Great Khural. Although the Democratic Party's vote share was down by just two percentage points, a new electoral law passed by the party while in government to promote

two-party system A two-party system is a political party system in which two major political parties consistently dominate the political landscape. At any point in time, one of the two parties typically holds a majority in the legislature and is usually referr ...

, together MPP vote share rising by around 14 percentage points, saw the Democratic Party lose 25 of 34 seats. As a result, the MPP secured a

supermajority A supermajority is a requirement for a proposal to gain a specified level of support which is greater than the threshold of one-half used for a simple majority. Supermajority rules in a democracy can help to prevent a majority from eroding fun ...

with 65 of 76 seats.

Electoral system

In the 2012 elections the 76 members of the

State Great Khural The State Great Khural is the unicameral parliament of Mongolia,Montsame News Agency. ''Mongolia''. 2006, Foreign Service office of Montsame News Agency, , p. 40 located in the Government Palace in the capital Ulaanbaatar. History 191 ...

were elected by two methods; 48 are elected from single-member constituencies and 28 from a nationwide constituency by proportional representation. However, on 5 May 2016 the electoral law was amended to remove the proportional representation seats.Mongolia's new election rules handicap smaller parties, clear way for two-horse race
Reuters, 20 May 2016 The changes were expected to marginalise smaller parties, and also removed the right of 150,000 Mongolians expatriates to vote, as they could not be registered in a specific constituency. The winning candidate had to receive at least 28% of the valid vote to be elected; if not, a by-election would be held. Voter turnout had to be at least 50% in a constituency for the result to be valid.

Campaign

Twelve parties were approved to contest the elections. However, the Civil Will–Green Party, which won two seats in 2012 and was part of the government coalition, was barred from running due to irregularities in its paperwork. The newly formed National Labour Party was also prevented from running, with its leader Surenkhuu Borgil planning on standing as an

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in Pennsylvania, United States * Independentes (English: Independents), a Portuguese artist ...

instead. A total of 498 candidates registered to contest the elections, with the Democratic Party and

being the only parties to contest all 76 seats.

Results

The 239 votes cast for the MPRP candidate in constituency 11 (Gobi-Altai) and the 595 votes cast for an independent candidate in constituency 58 (Khan-Uul) were annulled.State Great Khural 2016: General election results
General Election Commission of Mongolia

References

{{Mongolian elections Parliamentary elections in Mongolia

Parliamentary In modern politics and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...