Elections in Menghe
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Elections in Menghe are held every five years for delegates to the National Assembly and provincial assemblies, every two years for Village-level mayors and County-level councilmembers, and every year for delegates to the Village and County level Social Consultative Conferences. Executive officials at all other levels, from the Chairman of the Supreme Council to county heads, are appointed by a separate cadre management system and do not face democratic elections.
At each level, candidates for the election can only run if they receive the approval of the district's Elections Board, which is subordinate to the Ministry of Civil Affairs. The Menghean Socialist Party exercises tight control over these elections boards, ensuring that only candidates who are friendly to the regime may run. As such, while elections may involve a more or less fair race between two Socialist Party candidates, or between a Socialist Party candidate and another candidate from the United Front for National Restoration, candidates expressing serious opposition to the system are denied access.
The situation lightened somewhat in the 2019 election, where independent candidates were allowed to run for National Assembly seats for the first time since 1927. Stringent restrictions on media use and campaigning ensured that the UFNR retained a large majority in the legislature, but international observers rated the election as a significant step toward free democratic competition.
Eligibility
All Menghean citizens over the standard age of 19 are automatically registered to vote. Each district puts together an electoral roll using citizen registration data, and citizens confirm their identity at the polling station by showing their Resident ID card. Voting is not compulsory, though the MSP holds large rallies every year to encourage party supporters to vote.
Citizens may only vote at the polling station whose district contains the permanent address listed on their Resident ID card. Until recently, citizens could only cast ballots if the permanent address on their Resident ID card was situated in the county-level entity where their household was registered; thus, migrants from rural areas to cities were only eligible to vote in their home counties, and only if they remained registered with a relative's address. This restriction was relaxed in 2018, allowing migrant workers to cast ballots in their destination city if they had updated their permanent address at least one year prior.
Citizens living in a different part of Menghe from their registered home, or unable to reach a polling station on election day, may mail in an absentee ballot. Absentee ballots must be sent from Menghean soil, thus Mengheans living overseas cannot vote unless they return in person; an exception exists for military personnel serving at sea or on overseas bases.
Voting rights may also be revoked on other grounds. Citizens may not cast ballots from prison or jail, even if not yet convicted of a crime, nor may they cast ballots while on parole. Male citizens over the age of 19 who did not submit to a conscription eligibility check, or who were conscripted but did not appear for training, are also denied suffrage until they complete their training. At the judge's discretion, individuals convicted of misdemeanors may regain the right to vote after release, usually with a waiting period of five or ten years, while convicted felons lose the right to vote indefinitely. Suffrage may be restored to a convicted criminal if their case is cleared by a review court or if they are pardoned by the Chairman of the Supreme Council.
Elections by locality
Village-level
In rural "fifth-level divisions" (villages and towns), the mayor (rijang or ŭbjang respectively) is directly elected. In myŏn, the urban equivalent, there is no executive office. In gaja, special fifth-level divisions in the Dzungar and Ketchvan Semi-Autonomous Provinces, the village chief may be either elected or selected in accordance with tribal custom. Under the 1989 Yusin constitution, this is the only administrative level at which the executive faces a popular vote.
International observers consider village elections to be the fairest in Menghe, with genuine competition between candidates. Independent candidates were first allowed to run at this level in 1989, provided that they received the approval of a local elections board, and there have been numerous cases of independent candidates winning village or town mayorships. The Menghean Socialist Party tolerates this greater leeway because fifth-level governments have extremely limited administrative power, and are mainly responsible for overseeing the allocation of services budgeted by higher governments.
County-level
In "fourth-level divisions" (counties, county-level cities, and metropolitan districts), the appointed executive leader is advised by a group of elected councilmembers, generally between 3 and 7. Each councilmember represents a separate district, and they are elected on a simple plurality basis. Councilmember districts may be contiguous with village, town, myŏn, or gaja borders, though they are generally larger and sometimes cut across smaller units, especially in urban areas.
As in village-level elections, the MSP tolerates relatively genuine competition at this level because councilmembers have very limited power. While they may vote on advisory papers for the county head, their votes are nonbinding, and the county head can dissolve the council and call new elections at his or her discretion. Most councilmember work consists of constituency service, with rural councilmembers overseeing service provision by the village-level leaders below them, and urban councilmembers overseeing service provision directly. Councilmembers also play an important role in gathering public input on local policy issues and weighing possible options at deliberative meetings.