Topic:
Country: Mongolia
Delegate Name: Harini Manikandan
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
Preserving Free and Fair Elections
The State of Mongolia
Harini Manikandan
City High Middle School
The government is empowered by its duty to serve its citizens. The State of Mongolia sincerely believes in preserving and creating free and fair elections worldwide to produce excellent democracies. However, this important process in determining a country’s representation has become corrupted by many evils. Voters now seem to face a plethora of issues, from voter intimidation and suppression to the spread of misinformation. The actual process has also become diseased as electoral fraud is a severe issue throughout the world. With elections using the internet and online services increasingly, they become prone to cybersecurity attacks. According to Transparency International’s CPI 2022 of 43/100, the public sector faces a significant amount of corruption in elections. More than two-thirds of the countries scored below a 50 in this report, proving that a solution must be discovered.
The State of Mongolia takes this issue seriously due to the high amount of problems caused in our country due to unfair elections. In 1990, Mongolia transitioned to a democracy peacefully and has held elections ever since. To combat the issue of unfair elections, Mongolia amended its constitution in 2023 to expand the Parliament from 76 to 126 seats. This was to ensure a more mixed cabinet. Mongolia also held the International Democracy Forum to teach other nations about elections and democracy. While the United Nations initiatives of technical assistance for struggling nations and promoting just elections are honorable, more must be done.
Mongolia proposes a multi-faceted approach tailored to each nation’s needs. For nations with increased corruption, strengthened anti-corruption legislation is needed. For the monetary aspects of elections to remain fair, an increase in oversight for election finances is necessary. Election violence must also be addressed with better legal frameworks and increased policies in regions with a history of electoral violence. Overall, Mongolia believes that with strong guidelines proposed in the committee of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime combined with individual approaches taken by each nation to preserve sovereignty, this issue can be combated.
