MONGOLIA: Hundreds of Mongolians trudged through ice, snow and sub-zero temperatures yesterday to protest in the capital's vast main square against parliament's dissolution of the coalition government.
Police took up positions in front of the parliament and activists were told they would be arrested if they marched on the headquarters of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (MPRP), where last week demonstrators broke windows and reportedly set fire to the party's flag.
The day ended peacefully, however, with most of the marchers leaving the square by late afternoon as the temperature dropped further.
Mineral-rich Mongolia was plunged into political crisis last week when more than half the members of its cabinet, all from the MPRP, resigned from the coalition government of prime minister Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj, a member of the Democratic Party.
The MPRP, which ran the country as a Soviet satellite for much of the 20th century and remains its strongest political party, cited a decline in economic growth and a rise in inflation as reasons for its withdrawal from the government.
Mr Elbegdorj said the MPRP may have wanted to derail his administration's inquiry into "deep official corruption".
Half of Mongolia's population are nomads tending camels, ponies and sheep across the windswept steppe between Russia and China. More than 35 per cent of its citizens lived below the poverty line in 2004, according to official estimates.
The MPRP is seeking to lead a new government, but with half the 76 seats in the parliament, it is one vote short of being able to nominate a new prime minister by itself. "The MPRP has communicated its desire to form a government of national unity and we have expressed our interest to have all political parties represented in the new government," foreign minister Moenkh-Orgil, a member of the MPRP, said at a briefing for heads of foreign missions in Ulan Bator.
Mr Moenkh-Orgil said his party aimed to have a new prime minister nominated by Friday and a cabinet formed by the end of the following week.
Power shifts are not new in Mongolia. The last time the Democrats were in power - between 1996 and 2000 - four governments were formed in four years.
Steve Noerper, a professor at New York University, said the dissolving of Mr Elbegdorj's government represented a stark threat to democracy in Mongolia, which for years has been among the most stable states in Central Asia.
"Mongolia may see a period of political turbulence that could lay waste to a majority - some suggest the entirety - of its democratic gains," Prof Noerper, a former Asia Foundation representative in Ulan Bator, said in a statement.
US president George W. Bush visited Mongolia last November, praising the country as a model of democracy in the region and thanking the government for its support for the US-led coalition in Iraq. Mongolia has sent about 120 soldiers to Iraq. - (Reuters)