Mongolia President Elbegdorj wins vote

Mongolian President Tsakhia Elbegdorj won a second term, according to preliminary results Thursday, defeating a wrestling champion and the country's first woman presidential contender in an election dominated by a debate over mining wealth. The incumbent gained 50.23 percent of votes, Mongolia's General Elections Commission chief Sodnomtseren Choinzon said, after announcing that all ballots had been counted. But the result of Wednesday's election would not be official until the ballot papers were counted again on delivery to the capital Ulan Bator, Choinzon said. Results announced through the night suggested that Elbegdorj, a former journalist who played a leading role when Mongolia peacefully threw off 70 years of communist rule in 1990, was on course for victory.The Democratic Party candidate is expected to continue his policy of using foreign cash to power Mongolia's economy, which has been expanding rapidly in recent years. The exploitation of Mongolia's vast coal, copper and gold reserves has helped transform an economy once characterised by nomadic lifestyles not far removed from its famous empire-building hero, Genghis Khan, 800 years ago. But rising inequality in the cities and environmental damage in rural areas have dominated the political debate, while recent falls in commodity prices and slowing demand in the key market of China sparked uncertainty ahead of the election. Elbegdorj's main challenger Badmaanyambuu Bat-Erdene won 41.97 percent of the vote, according to the results. The champion wrestler is the opposition Mongolian People's Party's candidate. The third candidate, Natsag Udval from the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (MPRP),is the first woman to contest the presidency. She won 6.5 percent, according to the preliminary figures. Elbegdorj became president in 2009 after twice serving as premier. He has guided the growth of the Mongolian economy following the arrival of foreign mining giants, which have moved in to exploit huge and largely untapped reserves of coal, copper and gold that China and other customers need to fuel their industries."In this election the Democratic Party candidate Tsakhia Elbegdorj received the trust of voters and is leading by the number of votes he received," said Prime Minister Norovyn Altankhuyag, of the Democratic Party, before the results were announced. "We will continue working on eliminating corruption, bribery, bureaucracy and improving people's lives by continuing with the great construction and development. The government will work with the president and the people." The elections commission announced soon after polls closed that it would aim to announce official results on Thursday. At one polling site in Ulan Bator visited by AFP, electronic voting machines experienced glitches, which meant voters could not be identified by their fingerprints.Accusations of vote-rigging in 2008 parliamentary elections resulted in deadly riots, and led to Mongolia adopting an electronic voting system. But the commission said the computer problems were confined to two voting stations and were "not widespread". In the early hours of Thursday, MPRP general secretary Gankhuyag Shiilegdamba criticised the Democratic Party for celebrating victory, which he said was against Mongolian election law. "There were quite a number of violations, starting from computers that did not work," he added. "I will raise these issues at an appropriate moment." Both of Elbegdorj's challengers want to amend the contract for the Oyu Tolgoi mine, amid concerns over the social inequality that has arisen from Mongolia's breakneck development. Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto and Canada's Turquoise Hill Resources have jointly led construction of the $6.2 billion mine, which is expected to produce 450,000 tonnes of copper concentrate a year and generate up to one-third of government revenue by 2019. The first shipments from the mine were blocked by the government days before the polls and still remain grounded, Rio Tinto spokesman Bruce Tobin told AFP, without giving a reason. A previous delay earlier this month followed a government demand that Rio Tinto keep all export revenue in Mongolia, Prime Minister Altankhuyag said. The government has not commented on the latest delay.