No decisive winner in Mongolia presidential vote, runoff on July 9

There was no outright winner in Mongolia's presidential election, forcing the country's first ever second-round run-off between the two leading candidates, the country's General Election Committee.

Ulan Bator, June 27: Mongolia will hold its first ever presidential runoff vote on July 9 after none of the three candidates secured an absolute majority in an election marred by a "sabotage" attempt, electoral authorities said on Tuesday.

The result of Monday's vote was put off by several hours, angering supporters of the losing candidate who protested the delay as suspicious.

The drama capped a campaign marked by corruption scandals plaguing all three candidates that overshadowed voter concerns over unemployment in the debt-laden country wedged between Russia and China. Former judoka Khaltmaa Battulga of the opposition Democratic Party finished first with 38 percent of the vote, the General Election Committee said, well short of the 51 percent majority needed to win outright.

Parliament speaker Mieygombo Enkhbold of the Mongolian People's Party (MPP) finished second with just over 30 percent of the vote. Enkhbold edged Sainkhuu Ganbaatar of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (MPRP) by just 0.1 percentage point after he had trailed in the early vote count. Members of the MPRP held a protest at the General Election Committee office early Tuesday, said the head of the electoral body, Choizon Sodnomtseren.

Sodnomtseren defended the delay in announcing the result, saying someone had broken a broadband cable in Gobi-Altai province, preventing the results from several polling stations to be counted until Tuesday morning. He said it was an act of "deliberate sabotage".

The resource-rich nation of just three million has struggled in recent years with mounting debt. The next president will inherit a $5.5 billion bailout led by the International Monetary Fund and designed to stabilise its economy and lessen dependence on China, which purchases 80 per cent of Mongolian exports. But voters heard little from the three candidates about unemployment and jobs, their top concerns according to opinion polls. Campaigning has instead focused on their opponents' allegedly shady pasts.

Oneindia News (With agency inputs)