In a year stacked with dramatic, high-stakes elections — spanning India, Indonesia, South Korea, Taiwan, the U.S., and elsewhere — Mongolia’s June 28 parliamentary election was but a blip on the international radar.
It was noteworthy, however, for bucking a worrying global trend of democratic backsliding. Indeed, in 2023, Mongolian lawmakers passed constitutional reforms to make their system more transparent and more representative of the people they serve.
Ruling party secures slim majority
One of the most significant reforms expanded the size of the legislature from 76 to 126 members. Under this new system, the ruling centre-left Mongolian People’s Party, despite the advantages of incumbency, held onto its majority by only the slimmest of margins (68 seats), perhaps reflecting voters’ continued frustrations with corruption and inequality.
Mongolia’s democratic identity features prominently in its foreign policy. Geographically, the country of 3.4 million is sandwiched between China and Russia — two powerful autocracies. Mongolia’s ‘third-neighbour’ outreach to fellow market-based democracies, both regionally (e.g. India, Japan, and South Korea) and further afield (e.g. Canada, Australia, and the U.S.), helps it balance the political and economic influence of Beijing and Moscow.
The Ottawa-Ulaanbaatar connection
In late 2023, Canada and Mongolia upgraded their bilateral relationship to a comprehensive partnership, broadening their engagement beyond the historical focus on mining to increasingly pressing issues such as regional security.
Vina Nadjibulla, APF Canada’s Vice-President, Research & Strategy, participated in this year’s Ulaanbaatar Dialogue, Mongolia’s premier forum for discussions on Northeast Asian security.
She observed that despite the distance between Canada and Mongolia, “they are connected by what they do share: large territories with relatively small populations, a close proximity to superpowers, cold climates, and abundant natural resources.”
These commonalities, she added, “provide a foundation to co-operate more closely on priority areas identified in Canada’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, such as clean energy, education, emerging technologies, and people-to-people ties.”
