Mongolian election officials say the opposition Democratic Party has captured more votes than the ruling Mongolian People’s Party in last Thursday’s parliamentary election, but not the required majority. The Democratic Party is expected to win most seats in the 76-seat parliament, but will have to form a coalition. Official results are due within 14 days of the election. 

Mongolia’s election commission said that two districts must go to the polls again after winning candidates failed to garner the required percentage of votes. Candidates who won seats in the 22nd and 26th districts did not reach the minimum 28% required by election law, General Election Commission head Luvsanjav told reporters. Each district will decide when and how to conduct a rerun, he said, without saying how it would affect the overall results, which are compiled on the basis of a mixed proportional representation system.

Mongolians voted to directly elect 48 lawmaker and cast ballots for a political party, with their votes then used to allocate 28 more seats in parliament under a system of proportional representation.

The results are preliminary until each election district approves them, Luvsanjav said. As they stand at the moment, the Democrats won 22 seats and the MPP took 19 of the 48 being contested in the direct elections, Luvsanjav said. The Justice Coalition, which includes former President Nambaryn Enkhbayar’s party, won four seats and the last three went to independents, he said.

In the contest for the 28 seats to be distributed in proportion to the party vote, the election commission said the Democrats led with 35.3%, without stating how many seats that would earn the party. Prime Minister Sukhbaatar Batbold’s MPP took 31.3% of the vote, the Justice Coalition 22.3%, and the Civil Will Green Party 5.5%, the commission said.