Elements of the rather alarming changes that are happening in Mongolia can be seen in other Non-Western countries rather frequently nowadays, so the occurrence isn’t necessarily unusual.  An example of this can be seen in countries such as Venezuela, Poland, Bolivia, Turkey, and Hungary.  In fact, it has even happened in the United States itself!  This phenomenon is known as democratic backsliding.
Natural resources appear to be destabilizing Mongolian politics rather than helping the country develop and prosper for multiple reasons.  The country has an immense quantity of mineral wealth, the majority of which has not been utilized or developed.  This vast unused quantity of mineral wealth has made the country a target for a plethora of foreign investors; while this may appear to be an extremely beneficial development for the country, it’s actually detrimental for the most part (primarily behind the scenes).  
 The resources are being exploited which has a major effect on the entire country itself, especially in terms of the more heavily populated areas.  
Ulaanbaatar, as a result of the natural resource exploitation, has begun to undergo rapid modernization, which presents some unique problems for the government as well! 
Political corruption does play a significant role.
Coupled with this was an unanticipated major change to the electoral system; one month prior to the election day the country’s election rules were altered by the Mongolian People’s Party and the Democratic Party.  The mixed system that was previously in place, which used proportional and majoritarian voting, was uprooted and unexpectedly changed to a winner take all system that made it significantly more difficult for both third-party and independent candidates to win any seats in the election.  President Khaltmaa Battulga has even been involved in a corruption scandal.  He was overseeing a large industrial project and was accused of embezzling from it and came under investigation from the very institutions that he now controls with his presidency.  Following his scandal, the prime minister, assorted cabinet members, and over a dozen MPs embezzled approximately $1.3 million from small business development funds; over two dozen members of parliament were being investigated for these very same allegations.  Corruption goes as far as to determine who exactly is in power, which greatly affects the democratic backslide.  Battulga won in the 2017 presidential election, in part, due to the accusatory nature of his campaign.  He threw accusations at his political opponents, declaring that they were part of a secret oligarchy that controlled the Democratic Party and the Mongolian People’s Party and claiming that they exploited the mineral resource wealth at the expense of citizens.  This was a major catalyst for the backslide.  He vigorously insisted that the former president, his main rival, be investigated, but was promptly denied---this led to the accusation of Mongolian judges being under the control of a secret oligarchy and for the call for support of his new law to parliament.
