Ulaanbaatar
Law on Local Elections adopted
Politics
Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/. On January 30, Parliament passed a bill on elections of Representatives’ khurals (council) of aimags, capital city and soums and districts at its first hearing.
Presidential, Parliamentarian and local khural elections have been regulated under the Law on Elections since 2016.
A draft of the separate law on local elections was formulated last year with a view to elucidate the general provisions of elections of the representatives’ khurals of aimags, capital city, soum and districts – the country’s local self-governing bodies and improve the legal framework for organization of the local elections.
Polling day of local elections are organized on one of the working days of the first half of October in the same year as the parliamentary elections.
The law requires public service officials to give up their job before August 1 to run for local elections and sets elections campaign period for 15 days, instead of 22 days.
By the Law on Election, public officials had to resign at least 6 months before their nomination. The lawmakers pointed out that more than 7 thousand people on average run for a local election, most of whom work in the public sector. Therefore, the previous regulation caused the candidates to lose their earnings and affected public service productivity.
60 days prior to polling day of the local elections, any registration of internal movement to different administrative units to be suspended, which suggests the movement is halted by August 15 of election year and opens in October 15.
The new law also bans people who are found guilty of corrupt practices to be nominated in local elections.
Voting hours of local elections was also changed to 7AM to 08PM. Parliament member Kh.Nyambaatar, who headed the working group on the bill, explained this as "International observers criticized that the former 10 PM, closing time of elections in Mongolia became a factor associated with violations of election rules, such as cash distribution to voters late at night".
The Parliament of Mongolia passed a separate law on Parliamentary elections on December 20, 2019.
