Local special elections held

As Section 20.1 of the Law on Elections states that a special election to replace a lawmaker or local representative is to take place on the last Sunday of June or on the first Sunday of October each year, special elections in two provinces and five soums took place on October 7 to fill the vacant seats on local councils.

Some 15 candidates of the Mongolian People’s Party (MPP) and the Democratic Party (DP) ran for the empty seats.

From the elections, the special election held in Sukhbaatar Province was the main focus due to an ongoing dispute between the province’s MPP and DP.

Due to a complaint regarding the election for one of the 33 seats on the citizen’s representative council of Sukhbaatar Province, the two parties tied in the local elections held in June 2016 with 16 seats each.

In the October 2016 local election, a DP candidate won the empty seat, but the province’s MPP-appointed mayor is still in office.

In response to DP’s victory, the province’s MPP branch filed a case against the DP candidate who won the election, which is why the province’s DP branch could not appoint a new mayor and the seat is still empty until today.

DP filed a case against appointments of MPPappointed mayor and chair of citizen’s representative council to court, and the Supreme Court ruled that the appointments were valid.

If a DP candidate wins the special election, the party will be able to appoint a new mayor and chairman of the council. If MPP wins the election, they will keep the current mayor and council chair.

The province’s residents hope that the longstanding dispute between the two parts will be resolved after this special election.