🇲🇳🇮🇸🇵🇱Election Round Up: Mongolia, Iceland and Poland

Hello! Welcome to another election edition of Inside The Newsroom, where we’ll dissect what went down in Mongolia, Iceland and Poland over the past week. As the slew of Covid-19-rescheduled elections continue into July, next week we’ll take a look at Croatia and the Dominican Republic, before sneaking in a podcast with Betsy Sweet, who’s running for U.S. Senate out of the great state of Maine, and then tackling the all-important Syrian election on July 19. So buckle up and let’s travel to Mongolia! Enjoy 🤓

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2020 Elections So Far

June: Serbia, Kiribati and Malawi 🇷🇸🇰🇮🇲🇼

May: Burundi 🇧🇮 and Suriname 🇸🇷

April: South Korea 🇰🇷

March: Israel, Slovakia and Tajikistan 🇮🇱🇸🇰🇹🇯

February: Cameroon, Ireland and Azerbaijan 🇨🇲🇮🇪🇦🇿 and Iran and Togo 🇮🇷🇹🇬

January: Taiwan 🇹🇼 and Peru 🇵🇪

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Mongolia: Ruling Party Wins Landslide

The incumbent Mongolian People’s Party won 62 of the 76 seats in the State Great Khural, according to initial results. Prime Minister Khurelsukh Ukhnaa is set to serve his first full term after he was unanimously selected by his party to succeed former PM Jargaltulga Erdenebat, who was ousted in late 2017 over corruption allegations. In 2018, Ukhnaa and his government survived another attempt by parliament to oust them over a corruption scandal that involved several high-profile politicians. Almost 20 months later and Ukhnaa has strengthened his grip on power. Last week’s election continues a slide to the left in Mongolian politics (we’ll get onto that), as excellently visualized below by the super-talented Joshua Rayman, who is weirdly as interested in world elections as we are. 🙏

Mongolia’s proximity to China and Russia, and its vast untapped natural resources, make it one of the most unique and important countries in the world. Like a lot of states, it’s had a long and complicated road to independence. Time for another history lesson… After centuries under Chinese control, Mongolia declared itself independent once the Qing dynasty collapsed in 1911, but the Chinese army occupied Outer Mongolia just eight years later. Two years on and with Soviet help, Chinese and Tsarist forces were driven out, and a Mongolian government was installed. The Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party then aligned itself with Vladimir Lenin’s socialist philosophy until 1990, when mass protests lead to the full independence of and start of democracy in Mongolia.

Credit: BBC 👇

What Next for Mongolia?

Mongolia is understandably cautious of who it builds relationships with today and in the future. China and Russia’s actions over the past decade — Russia annexed Crimea from the Ukraine six years ago; Taiwan and Hong Kong are under threat of being completely swallowed into China’s communist empire — have forced Mongolia to look elsewhere for allies. India and the U.S. pose as the most logical options to form ties with, due to their size and economic power. As we’ve learned from past elections covered this year, the strategic importance of smaller countries such as Mongolia cannot be underestimated in a time filled with fraught tensions around the world.

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Iceland Creates History

Guðni Th. Jóhannesson was re-elected as president over the weekend with a whopping 92.2 percent of the popular vote, the second-largest margin of victory in Iceland’s presidential election history. Only Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, who won 94.6 percent in 1988, won a larger share. The independent Guðni was first elected in 2016, and rode an anti-establishment wave in the aftermath of the Panama Papers scandal, which implicated several of Iceland’s leaders, including then-Prime Minister Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson who resigned as a result of the groundbreaking revelations. But Guðni secured just 39.1 percent of votes in 2016, so what’s happened in the past four years for the country to flock to Guðni?

Well, that’s where we need some help, and Andie Sophia Fontaine, news editor at the Reykjavík Grapevine, was kind enough to send me this amazing explanation… 🙏

To understand Guðni's appeal, there's a couple things about the office of the Icelandic President that need to be understood as well. First, the office is not a political one. Presidents do not run from a particular party and, while in office, their main duties include signing laws passed by Parliament (which presidents almost always do), greeting foreign heads of state, and being a symbolic embodiment of the Icelandic people. The president is in many ways a diplomat, and is expected to be a voice of unification.

Second, incumbent presidents are rarely challenged in Iceland. It wasn't until recently that it was actually considered rude to run against a sitting president. But mostly, if the sitting president isn't absolutely horrible or hasn't been in office for like 20 years (like the previous president was), then it's rare they receive any real challenge to the seat.

In Guðni's case, his challenger was a divisive character who regularly pops up in the Icelandic discourse, Guðmundur Franklín — a populist, isolationist, and big fan of Trump. So it was unsurprising that he would challenge Guðni, and just as unsurprising that he lost as decisively as he did. Before Guðni was president, he was a well-respected historian. He literally wrote the book on the economic collapse (Hrunið) and was regarded as a non-partisan and thoughtful contributor to the discourse during an especially heated time in Icelandic history.

What Next for Iceland?

Last year when I visited Iceland with my bestie and freakishly talented photojournalist, Evan Cobb, we learned that the island’s astronomical tourism boom was in the middle of being burst, and the country was facing a deep recession. Fast forward 12 months and the situation is a helluva lot worse amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Though the number of cases and deaths have been relatively low, the huge drop in tourists visiting the island will only deepen Iceland’s economic woes. Like many countries, Iceland has begun the process of reopening its economy, but is set for a recession that could be the country’s worst since 1945.

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Poland Headed for a Run-Off

I’ll save the full treatment for a later newsletter, but Poland’s presidential election is headed for a run-off in two weeks’ time. That’s because no candidate in Sunday’s poll won more than 50 percent of the votes needed to win the presidency outright. Rightwing incumbent Andrzej Duda won 43.7 percent of votes, while the more liberal Rafał Trzaskowski, and mayor of Warsaw, secured 30.3 percent. The two men will now head to a run-off on July 12, where a winner will be crowned. More to come from Poland soon.

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