COVID-19 safety measures for local council elections approved
A temporary regulation for the prevention of COVID-19 spread during the forthcoming elections of the Citizens’ Representatives’ Khurals was approved by the government on September 30.
The regulation lays out detailed safety measures to take, and responsibilities imposed on political parties and candidates throughout the election campaign period, which is running through October 13, Tuesday, and on the nationwide polling day, which is scheduled on October 15, Thursday.
In particular, the following safety measures will be enforced to ensure voters' safety and prevent the spread of COVID-19:
- Conference rooms and halls to host the meetings and events must be disinfected in advance and participants must remain at least 1.5 meters away from each other at all times,
- Meetings must not take longer than 2 hours and all participants must wear face masks,
- Voters will be checked for temperature and sprayed with hand sanitizer when they enter the polling station and will be provided with a face mask if they do not have one.
- Protective face masks must not contain any promotional messages,
- Rooms and halls where meetings are taking place must be ventilated every 30 minutes for at least 10 minutes to ensure air circulates,
- Voters must maintain 1.5-meter distance between each other when casting ballots,
- The number of people at polling stations or meetings must be limited to avoid gatherings in large groups
- During the distribution of promotional materials to voters, the materials must be left outside of the voters’ homes, avoiding physical contacts,
- People aged under 18 years old must not participate in all activities of an election campaign, and must not accompany voters to the polling stations on the election day.
Those who breach the regulation will face legal action under the Law on Infringement and other corresponding laws.
In accordance with the government resolution on approving the COVID-19 safety measures, Minister of Finance Ch. Khurelbaatar was allowed to earmark MNT 483,2 million from the government’s contingency fund for financing the required expenses for the procurement of PPE to be used throughout the local elections.
In the upcoming local elections, the number of mandates is different at the electoral constituencies depending on the population, administrative and territorial division, territory size and density of each aimag, soum and district, and the capital city of Ulaanbaatar. In particular, there are 816 mandates at aimag and capital city-level local councils and 7,353 mandates for soum and district level local councils.
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