ULAN BATOR (AFP) - Mongolian President Natsagiin Bagabandi was elected for a second four-year term, cementing the grip on power of the ex-communist MPRP which already dominates the parliament, officials said today.

Bagabandi, the candidate of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (MPRP), won 57.95 percent of the vote in yesterday's polls, electoral committee chairman J Yadamsuren told reporters.

Mongolian Democratic Party (MDP) candidate Radnasumberel Gonchigdorj polled 36.58 percent while outsider Luvsandambyn Dashnyam of the Civil Will Party gained 3.54 percent.

Yadamsuren said there could be "slight changes" in the figures because flooding had delayed counting in parts of central and western Mongolia. He said voter turnout was 82.64 percent.

The MPRP ruled Mongolia, a vast but sparsely-populated country sandwiched between Russia and China, as a Soviet satellite state until pro-democracy protests brought an end to their one-party rule in 1990.

The party says it has now ditched its communist clothes and tried to reinvent itself as a social democrat party along the lines of Britain's new Labour party.

As part of its policy, it has approved the privatisation of virtually all of Mongolia's key state-owned companies in a bid to haul the economy off its knees.

The MPRP won by a landslide in general elections in July last year, winning 72 out of 76 seats in the Great Hural (parliament) on the back of widespread nostalgia for life before the collapse of the Soviet Union.

However, Bagabandi's share of the vote this time round was down from four years ago when he polled nearly 64 percent.

"The electorate, and in particular the business community, have voted for political stability," said Khurel Baatar, a close advisor of Mongolian Prime Minister Nambariin Enkhbayar.

Brutal winters

Mongolia has been pummelled by successive winters of brutal intensity which devastated the key livestock industry and it is still reeling from the shock therapy of free market reforms after decades of Soviet subsidies.

Analysts agree that most Mongolians want stability after an unhappy experience between 1996 and 2000 with a democratic coalition government, which descended into in-fighting and allegations of corruption.

The social cost of transforming Mongolia's shattered economy was one of the main issues of the campaign, with 40 percent of the population living below the official poverty line and 30 percent of Mongolians unemployed.

The 250,000 families of nomadic herders, who contribute a third of Mongolia's gross domestic product, are also suffering immense hardship after losing nearly 20 percent of their livestock to the cold in two years - five million animals out of a total of 32 million.

Bagabandi, a Soviet-trained engineer who is also a devout Buddhist, presented himself throughout the election campaign as a pillar of stability for the country as it goes through a difficult period.

He also pledged to crack down on the rampant corruption that has accompanied the breakneck move towards a free market economy.

While Mongolia has suffered tremendous economic pain since the collapse of the Soviet Union, it has been championed by the West as a small beacon of democracy in a tough neighbourhood that includes China and North Korea.

And the tiny electorate of 1.16 million has embraced democracy with vigour in the past decade, with voter turnout in elections usually topping 80 percent.