Asia

Home page

Asia

Opposition Democrats beat ruling party in Mongolia parliamentary vote

01 July 2012 03:57 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Mongoliaâ€™s opposition Democratic Party (MDP) has beaten ruling People’s Party (MPP) in the countryâ€™s seventh parliamentary elections,APA reports quoting Press TV.

During the contest for the 76 parliament seats on Thursday, the Democrats managed to secure 20 of the 48 seats awarded by outright majority, with 15 seats for the ruling Mongolian People’s Party (MPP) and fewer seats for two other parties, the Associated Press reported on Friday.

The Mongolian parliament is elected through a mixed election system.

48 lawmakers will be elected through a majority system and the remaining 28 seats will be allocated to each major party proportionately and based on the partiesâ€™ overall share of the vote.

The MDP and MPP both campaigned on promises that they would use trillion-dollar revenues from mining to create jobs and narrow the rich-poor gap through a fair distribution of wealth.

This is while, the ruling party rejected the results of the ballots on Saturday, calling for new elections.

Mongoliaâ€™s oldest political party argues that the new electronic voting system, used for the first time in the country, has been plagued with technical deficiencies.

The MPP and eight other smaller parties have signed a petition, saying the new electronic system for vote counting had â€œviolated the constitution of Mongolia.â€

It is the first time for Mongolia to use electric counting machines in elections.

At least 50 international observers from the United States, Britain, Canada, Russia and South Korea as well as international organizations, supervised the voting process.