Former martial arts star and businessman Khaltmaa Battulga has won Mongolia’s presidential run-off election, according to voter data from the Mongolian General Election Commission released yesterday.
The poll was seen as a referendum on the government’s economic recovery plans and the role of southern neighbor China in the landlocked, but resource-rich country known as the birthplace of Mongol emperor Genghis Khan.
Battulga, of the opposition Democratic Party, won with 50.6 percent of the vote on a 60.9 percent turnout, giving him the majority needed to overcome his opponent, parliament speaker Miyeegombo Enkhbold of the ruling Mongolian People’s Party.
Photo: EPA
However, election officials were waiting on a final count of votes from abroad.
The election campaign was marred by political mudslinging from all sides and the public perception that none of the candidates were fit for the job, according to Luvsanvandan Sumati, the head of polling group the Sant Maral Foundation.
“The worst election in Mongolian history,” Sumati said.
Enkhbold’s loss was definitive. He trailed far behind Battulga with 41.2 percent of the vote due to the nearly 100,000 blank votes submitted in protest at the choice of candidates.
Friday’s run-off was scheduled after the June 26 vote failed to result in a outright winner.
Some investors have been wary of a Battulga presidency because of his calls for more state control of some mines and his suspicions of China, Mongolia’s biggest trade partner.
Despite past protests, he has said he will stand behind plans to build a key railway to China from the enormous Tavan Tolgoi coal mine and has praised China’s “One Belt, One Road” pan-Asian infrastructure initiative.
“He may push projects that are politically motivated, but not economically justified,” said a Mongolia-focused institutional investor, who asked not to be named.
Battulga rose to fame as a Mongolian wrestler. His businesses include a hotel, a Genghis Khan-themed amusement park, and food companies for baked goods and meats.
Tsakhia Elbegdorj is to step down as president after finishing his second and final term.
Enkhbold stood behind the current government and prime minister, pledging to stay the course for economic recovery following a US$5.5 billion rescue package from the IMF and partners in May.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘POINT OF NO RETURN’: The Caribbean nation needs increased international funding and support for a multinational force to help police tackle expanding gang violence The top UN official in Haiti on Monday sounded an alarm to the UN Security Council that escalating gang violence is liable to lead the Caribbean nation to “a point of no return.” Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Haiti Maria Isabel Salvador said that “Haiti could face total chaos” without increased funding and support for the operation of the Kenya-led multinational force helping Haiti’s police to tackle the gangs’ expanding violence into areas beyond the capital, Port-Au-Prince. Most recently, gangs seized the city of Mirebalais in central Haiti, and during the attack more than 500 prisoners were freed, she said.
DEMONSTRATIONS: A protester said although she would normally sit back and wait for the next election, she cannot do it this time, adding that ‘we’ve lost too much already’ Thousands of protesters rallied on Saturday in New York, Washington and other cities across the US for a second major round of demonstrations against US President Donald Trump and his hard-line policies. In New York, people gathered outside the city’s main library carrying signs targeting the US president with slogans such as: “No Kings in America” and “Resist Tyranny.” Many took aim at Trump’s deportations of undocumented migrants, chanting: “No ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], no fear, immigrants are welcome here.” In Washington, protesters voiced concern that Trump was threatening long-respected constitutional norms, including the right to due process. The
RSS