Mongolia’s ruling party withdraws draft law on Presidential election for the sake of National Unity

Ruling Mongolian People’s party announced that it is withdrawing draft law on Presidential election 5 months ahead of Presidential election this year.

Sodbaatar Yantai, Vice chairman of MPP parliamentary group said the draft law was withdrawn in order to maintain “parliamentary unity and understanding” for the sake of national unity  and “procedural difficulty” of revoking existing election law, namely 180 articles of this law and  legal requirement on time factor that requires no election law is to be revised in 6 months ahead of any election.

Lawmakers from both ruling MPP and opposition Democratic party (DP) were conducting hearings about the draft law on presidential election. During the hearing of the draft law, 149 different opinions about the draft law were made by lawmakers and public and political parties and according to Sodbaatar, it is hard to reconcile these contradictory opinions in the draft law.

Previously, MPP and General Election Committee that oversees all elections in Mongolia considered that current Election law of Mongolia can not fully regulate all election processes in Mongolia and therefore, separate law on Presidential election is required.

Now, MPP parliamentary group considers that in future, it is appropriate to have separate laws for parliamentary as well presidential and local council elections, however, these draft laws should be submitted and discussed at the same in order to avoid legislative procedural error.

Sodbaatar said now the General election committee can now set date for the upcoming Presidential election since the draft law is withdrawn and election law will not be revised.

Presidential election it expected to be held in late June this year as previous elections.