Thirty years ago, Mongolia was a one-party state. In 2018, the number of political parties reached 29 and now, a year after, we count 33. The role of a political party is not restricted to competing in elections or holding political power when elected, but also extends to the provision of political education for the public and representing the views of the public. Even though the number of Mongolian political parties has multiplied, the level of maturity is still unsatisfactory. Instead of uniting and representing the public, political parties have become extractive clubs in Mongolia.
The Defacto Institute, an independent research institute, began publishing “The Index of Internal Democracy of Mongolian Political Parties” last year. The study aims to promote openness, transparency, and accountability of political parties by increasing internal and external checks and balances. A second study was conducted from April to June 2019.
Following four indicators were used for assessing the internal party democracy: participation, competition, representation, and funding-transparency. The political parties are scored on a scale of 0 to 100. If a party scores between 0 and 30 it is classified as non-democratic, 31 to 60 as semi-democratic, and 61 to 100 as democratic.
The participating parties of the previous study were the Democratic Party (“DP”), Mongolian People’s Party (“MPP”), Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (“MPRP”), National Labour Party (“NLP)”, Civil Will Green Party (CWGP), and Motherland Party (“MLP”). In addition to these six parties, the Mongolian Green Party (“MGP”) and Truth and Just Party (“TJP”) agreed to join this year’s study. Other political parties were absent from the study for several reasons: they could not be contacted by the research team, they were hesitant to participate, or they merely refused to participate.
Last year, the team surveyed political party members via phone call for the quantitative part and conducted interviews with experts for the quantitative part of the study. A qualitative research method was solely utilized to advance the methodology of this year’s study.
Table 1: The Internal Democracy Index of Mongolian Political Parties 2019
Political Party is not a club
Through this research on political party rules the team discovered that only the MPP, DP, MPRP, and MGP’s internal rules were accessible through their official website. While the NLP sent its rules after a request, the TJP did not share its rules out of concern that other parties might illegally copy their documents.
Furthermore, the team made an official request to the Supreme Court, where all political parties in Mongolia must previously be registered. However, under Article 12.5 of the General Law on State Registration, in order to acquire detailed information of a political party a written consent of concerning legal entity is required, and as a result, the court denied the team’s request. It is a common practice of democratic countries to ensure public access to information on political parties or public bodies. For instance, the German Political Party Act, Article 6.3 stipulates that
- The statutes and party program;
- The names and functions of the members of the Executive Committees of the party and its Land branches;
- The dissolution of the party or any of its Land branches. These records shall be available for public inspection (…) Copies of such records shall be provided free of charge upon request.
Political parties are public authorities that guarantee open and transparent activities, rules, policies, and funding. At the very least, the party’s rules must be accessible through the respective official website or social networking sites.
What has changed?
The participation of political party members is activated at all levels due to the preparation and selection of candidates to the re-election of the 42nd electoral district. Moreover, 2019 is the year preceding the election to parliament, and consequently the participation of members relatively increased because political parties have been holding the central and local meetings.
The following chart shows the changes that took place in six political parties which participated last year. Improvement can be seen on internal democracy of four political parties, whereas the internal democracy of two political parties, the MLP and CWGP, weakened.
Figure 1: Comparison of the Internal Democracy Indexes of Mongolian Political Parties of 2018 and 2019
In terms of participation, political parties hardly hold internal policy debates. The methods of discussing and solving internal matters are diverse, but it was commonly observed that political parties rarely involve party members or supporters in determining the party internal policy.
Regarding competition, there were incidents in 2019 which could be considered as worst practices of internal democracy of the MPP and DP, two political parties that hold majority and minority seats in the parliament. The two political parties suspended memberships based on the reason that members stood against the party position on the matter. J. Batzandan, the member of the parliament, was suspended and the DP’s became factionless. Civil representative S. Munkhchuluun was also suspended due to his decision to run for city governor, which opposed the MPP’S collective decision. Nowadays, only few select the candidates and determine their position under the party council or representative body name.
Political parties must ensure the representation of all social groups. Even though the parties have representatives of all social groups, including the young, old, and women, the proportion of female candidates within a party standing for election to parliament or to decision-making positions is not sufficient across all parties. In fact, the Law on Election set the minimum threshold for women in the candidate list at 20%. Moreover, several political parties have set higher gender quotas in their rules, but in reality these are not enforced effectively.
Figure 2: The Internal Democracy Index of Mongolian Political Parties, by dimension
Under the Law on Political Parties, the financial activities of the Mongolian parties must be audited by an external agent and disclosed to the public. Only the NLP and the MGP are setting an example of best practices by carrying publicly open and transparent financial activities in accordance with the law, as their audited financial reports are made public on official websites and social networking accounts. Among other political parties it is quite common to regard transparency and openness as internal principles concerning only its members.
In the previous year, all participating political parties fell under the category of semi-democratic. This year, the MGP, MPRP, DP, and NLP made progress and leaped to the democratic category. It is noteworthy, that the scores of each assessment vary among political parties.
It is an imperative for the Mongolian political parties to mature.
2019.08.28
Trans. by Riya.T and Ariunzaya.M