Mongolians go to polls as mining deals eyed
Reuters reports that:
By Lindsay Beck
ULAN BATOR (Reuters) - On horseback, foot and motorcycle, Mongolians cast their ballots on Sunday 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, the smaller parties on the ballot could be the real power-brokers.
“Are you going to ask me who I voted for?” Prime Minister Sanjaagiin Bayar joked as he cast his ballot in the capital.
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 3 million, whose empire under Genghis Khan once extended west as far as Hungary.
The unstable coalition meant the country has been through three prime ministers since then. Bayar’s MPRP 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 to fight inflation that rose to 15.1 percent 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 head.
The agreement, which developers Ivanhoe Mines and Rio Tinto predict would increase Mongolia’s GDP by 34 percent, 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 chose what kind of development they want in the next four years,” said Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj, the leader of the Democratic Party.
HIGH TURNOUT
Many voters expressed a desire to see a more stable government, and Mongolia’s Election Commission said judging from early returns, voter turnout was expected to surpass the 82 percent who voted in 2004.
“It’s important that somebody who is capable of doing something, not just talking, is elected,” said Enkhtaivan Saaral, 38, who like many Mongolians, is a nomadic herder on the country’s rolling grasslands and lives in a round felt tent.
He was to travel on horseback to the nearest district centre to cast his ballot in the polls, which close at 3 p.m. British time.
In the poor suburbs of Ulan Bator, where many are without sewage treatment and disconnected from the city’s power grid, residents were anxious to reap the benefits of Mongolia’s 9.9 percent economic growth, and feeling the pinch of inflation.
“The living standards here need to be improved. We need more income,” said Bayartai, 67, wearing a traditional long silk cloak, known as a deel.
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 does polling and surveys.
“I’m afraid that if they calculate the ballots 10 times they will get 10 different results,” he said.
(Editing by David Fogarty)
http://uk.reuters.com/article/rbssIndustryMaterialsUtilitiesNews/idUKL2966816520080629?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0
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