Civil Service Council of Mongolia

Mr. Samdan Tsedendamba is the director of the Civil Service Council of Mongolia.  The role of the council is to support and train the civil service and public administrators who work for the national and local governments.

 

Mr. Samdan Tsedendamba, Director of the Civil Service Council of Mongolia

In 1996, the Parliament adopted the Law of Civil Servants to establish a civil servant and public administation workforce throughout Mongolia.  In 2002, an amendment to the law created an independent council (the Civil Service Council of Mongolia) to support the training and development of a professional public sector workforce for all levels of government in Mongolia.  The council members serve 10 year terms and are appointed by the State Great Hural (Parliament).

The Civil Service Council (CSC) created a subscription certification program in cooperation with the National Academy of Governance to provide educational opportunities for the civil servants in their respective fields or programs of work.

In Mongolia, four categories of civil servants were established.  They are:

1. Political civil servants and administrators - the staff of the elected officials
2. Public administrative staff - work for the public sector in the Aimag (county) offices
3. State Special Organizations - Customs & Immigration, police, emergency responders and tax offices
4. State service employees - teachers and anyone who receive funding from the public budget

Civil servants organizations fall into one of two categories:  1) university and 2) public administrators

The primary challenge for Mongolia is how to protect the civil service employees jobs.  When political power changes hands - whether it's within the same political party or a different political party - the civil servants fear the loss of their jobs.  In 2002 and 2008, the Parliament passed civil servant protection laws to prevent the loss of the country's professional public workers.  In practice, these laws have done little to prevent political cronyism and favoritism.  The challenge is how to given these laws "teeth" so that they can be enforced.

While my notes from this meeting are short, the discussion was deep and very substantive.  We went way over our one hour alloted time.  We discussed Kentucky's past history and the creation of the Kentucky Merit System. The growth pains that Mongolia is experiencing seem to mirror those that Kentucky and the US have experienced over the past 200 years.  It seems that they are us all over again.  I really did not realize the importance of bureacratic structure as the underpinning for making our democracy work. A very interesting discussion.  Time flew by!

 

General Election Commission of Mongolia

I had an opporutnity to meet with Namsraijav Luvsanjav, chairman of the General Election Commission of Mongolia.  Mr. Luvsanjav oversees the conduct of all of the elections - federal and local - that take place in Mongolia.  (Think of the Kentucky Secretary of State who oversees all elections in Kentucky.)

 

Namsraijav Luvsanjav, Chairman, General Election Commission of Mongolia

What a fascinating individual!  I really wanted to be prepared prior to this meeting taking place so I jotted down a couple of burning questions that were on my mind and practiced with Hatnaa:  1) How does the commission create trust in the adminstration of elections?  How does one insure transparency, accountability and accuracy in a setting that is rife with the potential for corruption and rigged ballot boxes?  2) How does the office divest itself of the appearance of favortisim in the political process when the ruling political party essentially appoints the members of the commission?  How does the office serve as the "independent voice of the citizens?"

On the question of trust, Mr. Luvsanjav discussed in great detail the way in which the elections are conducted.  Over the past few years, Mongolia has transitioned from paper ballots to electronic ballot machines in much the same way that Kentucky has done.  At first this created angst and confusion among the voters, but they have come to accept that this method provides a more accurate and tamper-proof way of adminstering the elections.

He described the process by which the Division of Information and Technology partners with international organizations to write the program code for the machines to insure that the vote counting is impartial, accurate and trustworthy.  The ballots are electronically scanned.  The interests of the minority parties are protected through a "challenge" system and the Minority Working Group works with the Information and Technology Division's Investigative Agency to address any questions regarding the integrity of the vote.

In addition, poll workers attend mandatory training on the election procedures.  About 2000 election workers are hired on a temporary basis to assist at local polling stations throughout the country.  Election commissions are established in every polling district to protect the integrity of the vote on the local level, i.e the aimags, districts and soums.

Further, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and international monitoring organizations monitor the election process and validate the results.

On the question of separating the commission from the appearance of political favoritism, Mr. Luvsanjav pointed out that while the position is approved by the Parliament, the integrity of the ballot must be sacrosanct.  His office insures confidence in the process through the following safeguards:

1. Validation of all election results by local election monitors.
2. Conducting elections in the presence of international election monitors from the UN and other democratic NGOs.
3. All of the processes and results are made public.
4. The process is transparent.  Nothing occurs behind closed doors.
5. All decisions are made in the open to insure accountability.
6. The elections must be conducted fairly regardless of political party affiliation.

Mr. Luvsanjav was very adroit at answering the politically sensitive questions.  Of course, our time was limited because Mongolia has just completed national elections and will conduct additional local elections in October.  I made the most of our thirty minutes together.  He was very interested in Kentucky's election process, and we both agreed that we have much in common.  I thought of former Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson several times during our meeting and his efforts to educate the public, increase transparency and encourage civic participation during his term in office.  I'd like to think that he would have appreciated and enjoyed this discussion immensely.

(NOTE:  I specifically did not use the pronoun "you" in any of my questions because I didn't want to appear to be questioning his personal integrity and this really is about the "office" and not the "man." Mr. Luvsanjav could not have been more cordial or forthright, and I really appreciated the manner in which he answered every question as well as his interest in my home state.)