ULAANBAATAR — Mongolia's ruling party emerged from this week's elections with its parliamentary majority significantly diminished on Saturday, local media said, after a campaign dominated by graft fears and the state of the economy.

Prime Minister Luvsannamsrain Oyun-Erdene on Saturday morning declared victory in the previous day's polls, in which millions of Mongolians turned out to elect 126 members of the State Great Khural, the East Asian country's unicameral parliament.

Mongolia's Prime Minister Luvsannamsrain Oyun-Erdene speaks during a press conference at the headquarters of his Mongolian People's Party in the capital Ulaanbaatar on June 29, 2024. AFP PHOTO

Local media outlet Ikon, collating figures provided by the country's General Election Commission, reported that the ruling Mongolian People's Party (MPP) had won 68 seats, giving it a majority of four.

The main opposition Democratic Party won 42, Ikon reported, while the minor anti-corruption HUN party won eight. Smaller parties won eight seats between them.

At a press conference in the capital Ulaanbaatar on Saturday afternoon, the head of the Electoral Commission said there remained some votes to be counted by hand to verify results collated by machines.

"Only six to seven polling stations are remaining, but the hand counting matches the machines 100 percent," he said. "These polling stations will be finished very soon."

The results — the first under a new electoral system in which Mongolians vote for both proportional lists and individuals representing large districts — mean the MPP will govern with a greatly reduced majority.

'Rebuke'

The new parliament will see the MPP hold 54 percent of the seats, compared to about 80 percent in 2020.

"This election result definitely represents a rebuke to MPP and the entirety of its leadership," Bayarlkhagva Munkhnaran, an analyst and former official with the National Security Council of Mongolia, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Winning 68 seats is "barely a face-saver, and any subsequent government will be a weak but much more democratic one," he said.

"The biggest winners are [the] Mongolian people who resolutely hit the polling stations and confirmed their unequivocal support for [the] democratic path," the analyst added.

Analysts had expected the MPP to retain the majority it has enjoyed since 2016 and govern for another four years.

They say the party can credit much of its success to a boom in coal mining that fueled double-digit growth and dramatically improved standards of living, as well as to a formidable party machine.

But the campaign was dominated by deep public frustration over endemic corruption, as well as the high cost of living and lack of opportunities for young people who make up almost two-thirds of the population.

There is also a widespread belief that the proceeds of the coal-mining boom are being hoarded by a wealthy elite — a view that has sparked frequent protests.