“Organizing the first ever run-off election was different from other presidential elections in Mongolian political history and the live broadcast of the ballot counting process was an advantage compared to previous presidential elections,” said B.Oyumaa.

During the press conference, journalists asked her and representatives from GEC in attendance about proposed changes to the Law on Elections.

How will the law be changed?

Parliament set up a task force to study the law’s amendment, and GEC has made proposals to the task force. All elections are being carried out under the unified Law on Elections, but GEC proposed to Parliament to separate this law into three different laws (laws on parliamentary, presidential and citizen’s representative councils elections) and Parliament supported this initiative. GEC is focusing on improving the law by putting forward proposals to the task force to eliminate challenges that regularly occurred during previous elections. Other state organizations which are involved with election operations have the right to make proposals to the task force.

What exactly did GEC propose to address the challenges?

As it’s costly to hold a second round of voting due to low voter turnout, GEC put forward a proposal to not require a certain percentage of voter turnout for an election to be considered valid to the task force. GEC also put forward a proposal requiring parliamentary election candidates to be at least 30 years of age.

Why does GEC want to put an age requirement?

This is not a new proposal. Few years ago, GEC put forward a proposal about increasing the age requirement for parliamentarians, but this proposal was not supported by Parliament. This is not only a proposal by GEC, the public asks GEC and Parliament to revisit the minimum requirement age for parliamentary candidates.