Election in progress

Last night the election campaigns of the candidates of the Mongolian Presidential Election was terminated at midnight. Now one day without campaigning waits, which is like living in a limbo for the professional political scientist.

Yesgterday we had a short briefing at the Office of Foreign Affairs and Trade by the General Election Committee and its Chairman S. Luvsanjav, and afterwards that I was personally interviewed by a TV-channel and on the air at 21.00. It is a little bit strange to see yourself on a TV-screen and realise that this is not your ordinary vacation movie. Even stranger is the Mongolian voice over, coming in after your first three words...

We made some interviews yesterday with people occupied in the two candidates campaigns. The interviewee from the MNDP (Mongolian National Democratic Party) stressed that it is important to secure that the election process is operated in a fair manner. Especially the vote counting process. The campaigning had been more active, intense and competitive than the previous presidential elections held in Mongolia (1993, 1997, 2001 and 2005). He thought the MNDP's cnadidate Elbegdorj had preformed better than he had expected and almost appeared as presidential in his appearance. He was confident that Elbegdorj had a good chance winning the presidency.

The interviewee from the MPRP (Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party) stressed that the accusations from their opponents of election fraud was close to the absurd. He had heard stories that sounded like fairy tales. He agreed with the MNDP interviewee that this campaign had been more intense and competitive than the previous ones. He thought that the election was going to be a tight one and with his experiences from earlier election his forecast was that his candidate would win with 5 to 6 percents margin.

An anecdote in this context is that yesterdays issue of UB Post had an article boosting that Mongolia finally had its chance to have its first democratic president, if Ts. Elbegdorj is elected. This is a very interesting notion as in 1993 Ochirbat was elected, in what is considered as free and fair democratic elections, and furthermore that he changed sides from the MPRP to the democratic opposition. In 1997 and 2001 Bagabandi was elected in democratic elections and finally Enkhbayar was elected in democratic elections 2005. Therefore it would be interesting to know in what respect Elbegdorj is more democratic than the others.

It might be as a Mongolian told me: "- Some have the word democratic in their party name but that does not make them more democratic..."

One of the Mongolian election myths:

During a previous election a vote count occured in a constitutiency in the middle of nowhere. One of the election-workers was in conspiracy with a candidate and when they had their tea-break, he had put in sleeping pills into the tea, and while the rest of election-workers were sleeping he managed to calculate the result according to the preferences of his conspirator...

It would have been interesting to know how he explained that everybody fell asleep and miracuously the vote count was finished as they woke...