By Eva Cheng
In Mongolia's May 19 presidential election, Nachagyn Bagabandi, chairperson of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (MPRP, formerly the Communist Party), won with 61% of the vote, defeating incumbent President Punsalmaagiyn Ochirbat from the Democratic Union coalition of parties.
The position of president, created only in 1990, holds limited power. The dumping of the Democratic Union candidate appears a strong protest against the "free market" economic reforms of the current Democratic Union government rather than an endorsement of the Stalinist MPRP, which ruled Mongolia single-handedly from the revolution of 1921 until it was forced to share power with the opposition in 1990.
The collapse of the Soviet Union, which Mongolia relied on heavily, helped trigger crucial changes, including the resignation of the politburo of the MPRP, constitutional reforms to end one-party rule, allowing legal opposition parties for the first time, and the move to transform Mongolia into a "market economy".
The MPRP remained dominant initially. At the 1990 election to the parliament, the State Great Hural, it won 357 of the 430 seats, with 62% of the votes, and in 1992, 71 of the total of 76 reconstituted seats available.
Punsalmaagiyn Ochirbat, then a MPRP candidate, was selected in 1990 by the Great Hural as the country's first president. In the standing legislature — the Little Hural, a creation of the 1990 reforms — the MPRP also won 31 out of 50 seats.
But in the country's first presidential election by popular vote in 1993, the Democratic Union won, with Punsalmaagiyn Ochirbat — who had just left the MPRP — as its candidate. In the Great Hural election 12 months ago, the Democratic Union captured 50 of the 76 seats.
The Democratic Union government switched Mongolia's economic "free market" transformation into higher gear. With the goal of integrating Mongolia into the world capitalist economy, it froze key government spending, lifted price controls, slashed pension rolls and embarked on de-nationalising 60% of state-owned property by the year 2000.
Living standards of the common people had already been seriously eroded since the drying up of assistance from the Soviet Union. Inflation went through the roof, and the people suffered a significant drop in real income.
But things worsened noticeably after the Democratic Union came into power. Consumer price rises doubled in the second half of 1996 to 7.3% per month, and in February this year, more than 100,000 women were summarily removed from the pension rolls. Government officials say these new measures are part of a "shock therapy", designed to shake up the economy.
The Democratic Union has shown little interest in transforming Mongolia in the interests of the common people. It is proud of its close relationship with the US Republican Party, whose backing it acknowledged as crucial to its electoral victory last year.
Prime Minister M. Enksaikhan said recently that Mongolia "needs a third force [beyond Russia and China] to lean on", naming the US as Mongolia's "third neighbour".
In 1995, US President Bill Clinton authorised the provision of military aid to Mongolia in addition to a new US$4.5 billion aid package. Of Mongolia's parliamentarians elected last year, 36% have been beneficiaries of grants from the US government-backed Asia Foundation, and eight came from NGOs aided by the Asia Foundation.