Polls close in Mongolia as mining deals eyed
The US Daily writes that,
ULAN BATOR (Reuters) - Mongolians turned out in droves on Sunday to vote in a tight race that will see the election of a government charged with fighting inflation and tapping into the windswept country’s huge mineral wealth.
Polls closed at 1400 GMT, but results in the vote that pits the ruling Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (MPRP) against the Democratic Party were not expected until Monday at the earliest.
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.
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.
In the event of another deadlock in the 76-seat parliament, or Great Hural, the smaller parties on the ballot could be the real power-brokers.
“Our party’s position is very constructive. We raise our voices if there is bad and we support what is good,” said Sanjaasurengin Oyun, of the Civil Will Party.
Oyun, who has cooperated with both major parties in past, declined to say who her party might favor this time.
Mongolia saw three prime ministers in the last four years, the latest Sanjaagiin Bayar of the MPRP, the party that ruled the country for much of the last century as a Soviet satellite.
The challenge now will be to form a government with enough mandate to take decisive action to fight inflation that rose to 15.1 percent last year, its highest level in more than 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 bargaining 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.
Voters came on horseback and on foot, by car and by motorbike to cast their ballots in the country that in less than 20 years has become a lively, Central Asian democracy.
“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.
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 or disputes in counting and several days before an official result.
http://theusdaily.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=438614&type=home
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