There was no outright winner in Mongolia’s presidential election on Monday, forcing the country’s first ever second-round run-off between the two leading candidates, the country’s General Election Committee said on Tuesday. The second polling will, therefore, take place on 9th of July, the day before Mongolia’s traditional Naadam festival. Because of Naadam, there is the risk of low voter turnout. For this reason, the Mongolian Democratic Union is strongly recommending bringing forward  the date of the re-run to 6^th of July.

The Mongolian Democratic Union is also claiming that the General Election Committee did not organise a fair election and broke the law. It claims that nearly 20 thousand votes for S.Ganbaatar, the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party candidate, were taken from the count. The MDU noted that Ts.Boldsaikhan, secretary of General Election Committee is friend with Parliamentary Speaker and candidate M.Enkhbold from the Mongolian People’s Party, implying collusion.  The claim of the missing votes become relevant when we look at the final figures: as we reported yesterday, M.Enkhbold won 411748, with S.Ganbold close behind with 409899.

M.Enkhbold, will be going into the head-to-head early next month against the Mongolian Democratic Party candidate, Kh.Battulga, who won 517478 votes.