ON HORSEBACK, foot and motorcycle, Mongolians cast their ballots yesterday in a tight race that will see the election of a government tasked with fighting inflation and tapping into huge mineral wealth.
A poll showed the ruling Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (MPRP) with a slight edge over the Democratic Party, but if neither wins a majority in the 76-seat parliament, or Great Hural, smaller parties on the ballot could be the real power-brok
ers.
The last election, four years ago, resulted in a hung parliament, leaving the parties to scramble to form a government to rule the landlocked country of less than three million, whose empire under Genghis Khan once extended west as far as Hungary.
The unstable coalition since the election has led to the country having three prime ministers since then. The present leader is Sanjaagiin Bayar and his MPRP party has ruled Mongolia for much of the past century as a Soviet satellite.
The challenge now will be to elect a government with enough mandate to take decisive action against inflation that rose to 15.1 per cent last year, its highest level in over a decade, and to ratify a key mining investment agreement.
Amendments to the Minerals Law and the passage of the draft investment deal would allow the Gobi desert Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold project to go ahead.
The agreement, which developers Ivanhoe Mines and Rio Tinto predict would increase Mongolia's GDP by 34 per cent, could clear the way for future deals to extract its resources, which include coal and uranium.
Both parties say they support the investment agreements.
But smaller, populist parties are tapping into public suspicion that mining deals will give away Mongolia's wealth to foreigners and create environmental disasters, and those groups could be in a key negotiating position in a tight race.
"These elections will be very important for the development of Mongolia, and Mongolians will have to choose what kind of development they want in the next four years," said Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj, the leader of the Democratic Party.
Many voters expressed a desire for more stable government, and Mongolia's Election Commission said judging from early returns, voter turn-out was expected to surpass the 82 per cent of 2004.
New electoral rules that change the previous, first-past-the-post system mean there could be confusion at the ballot box and several days before an official result.
"The system of calculation is very complicated," said Luvsandendev Sumati, director of the Sant Maral Foundation, a non-governmental organisation that carries out polling and surveys.
"I'm afraid that if they calculate the ballots ten times they will get ten different results," he said.
The results are expected this week.
The full article contains 463 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
