Mongolia’s President Moves to Consolidate Power

By: Olivia Avery

Sandwiched in between two global superpowers, Mongolia is situated as a reminder of the promise of democracy ushered in by the United States in the early 1990s as the USSR fell. Geographically, Mongolia is composed of a large swath of the Eurasian steppe, Siberia to the North, the Gobi Desert to the South, and the Altai mountains to the West. While Mongolia was never a formal member of the USSR, it’s economic ties to Russia were reflected in a political structure that had been modeled after the Soviet nation. The dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991 coincided with democratic revolutions in many of its member-states, Mongolia included. The Mongolian Revolution led to the first democratic elections in 1990, and Mongolia went on to recognize the independence of other former member-states as they mounted their own democratic revolutions.[1]

After embracing democracy, Mongolia struggled in the nineties with food shortages and disruption of industrial supply chains.[2] Mongolians leaned on their nomadic, pastoral lifestyle to carry them through this period, and agriculture production increased significantly. In the late nineties and early two-thousands, small entrepreneurial businesses such as private drivers and boot-repairers sprang up and the service sector grew as Mongolia invited foreign investment and public-private sector consolidation.[3]

Foreign investment in Mongolia has mainly centered around mining and infrastructure development, with some financial sector participation as well. During the aughts, this development strategy yielded prosperity for the nation, and in 2012, Mongolia had the world’s fastest-growing economy.[4] However, economic growth had its speedbumps. During the 2008 financial crises, Mongolia turned to the International Monetary Fund for help as the price of copper plummeted.[5] Even as the economy seemed to rebound, poverty remained high and the wealth gap widened.

Corruption and Public Confidence in Government

As Mongolia’s economic growth slowed to a halt around 2016, Mongolians were left wondering what had happened to the billions of investment dollars that its politicians and businessmen had touted as indicators of Mongolia’s prosperity. While this influx of capital made it possible for Mongolians to participate in small lending and benefit from social subsidy programs, it left many in a cycle of debt, “living from loan to loan.”[6] After it was able to pay off a $232 million loan early to the IMF thanks to a commodities boom, Mongolia struggled to repay subsequent loans and its foreign reserves dropped from over $4 billion in 2012 to just over $1 billion in 2017.[7] As Mongolia’s government struggled financially, so did many Mongolians.

Public confidence in the government’s ability to navigate the country through its economic troubles waned as rumors of corruption were confirmed on the global stage. A number of Mongolian officials and business executives, particularly in the mining industry, were implicated in the Panama Papers.[8] In the 2017 Mongolian federal election, corruption was a main topic for the candidates. The winner, Mongolia’s current President Khaltmaagiin Battulga, ran largely on a populist platform of ending corruption and re-nationalizing industry.

Climate and Environmental Concerns Mount

Mongolians, particularly those heading families that still subsist off of their relationship to the land, have always had a spiritual relationship to nature. While shamanism was suppressed during the communist era, during democracy Mongolians were able to practice religion freely.[9] In contrast to the religious suppression seen under communism, many Mongolians now see the environment as under siege.[10] Not only is mining a resource-intensive industry, but the industry that helped Mongolia grow its economy has also encroached on natural habitats and diverted water sources headers depend on. Additionally, climate change and growing heard populations has left the traditionally verdant step drying out and blowing away. After being hit with a number of particularly difficult winters in 2016 and 2017 have decimated the livelihoods of nomadic Mongolians.[11] As Mongolians flock to the capital, Ulaanbaatar, the sheer number of people burning raw coal to survive the -30-degree winters have left the city as the most polluted capital in the world, passing New Delhi and Beijing.[12] As one possible solution, some Mongolians have looked towards stronger presidential power to effectuate reform.[13]  

Consolidation of Power

The problems facing Mongolia have no silver bullet; however, it seems as if Mongolian politicians are growing increasingly impatient with its current system of democracy. The consolidation of presidential power in Mongolia’s case is relatively unsurprising given that it is surrounded by two nations with strong and powerful heads-of-state, China and Russia. In the spring of 2019, President Battulga took the first step towards this consolidation in what looked like an otherwise innocuous parliamentary vote.[14] By amending the Law on Anti-Corruption, 82.1% of the Parliament voted in favor of allowing any judge to be forcibly recused from a case upon the decision of a commission made up of the President, Prime Minister, Speaker of Parliament, and a judicial representative appointed by the President.[15] In 2017, Parliament also passed an extremely punitive defamation law, which effectively supports Mongolian politicians’ habit of filing defamation cases against journalists that pen negative political coverage.[16]

While history would indicate that Mongolia is undoubtedly in need of a mechanism to deal with political and economic corruption, it is impossible to ignore the current scandals facing the Battulga administration that could be resolved under the amendment. After Russia sold a 49% share the large Erdenet copper mine to a shell corporation with undisclosed shareholders, the parliament voted to nationalize the company which was met with a lawsuit.[17] President Battulga himself was also facing a corruption charge when he was elected and has been calling for the investigation of his rival, Mongolia’s former president. While it is not clear how often the amendment will be put into use to force judicial officials to recuse themselves, hopefully the measure will lead to increased accountability and not perpetuate the cycle of corruption and political division.

While Mongolia is currently facing many of the same struggles as other resource-based economies, its strong ties to the environment and its cultural heritage make it uniquely positioned to push back against the foreign investment that may be useful for the diversification of its economy. The consolidation of power and limitations imposed on the judiciary may provide Mongolians with increased confidence in a stronger leader; however, it may scare off investors worried about the appropriation of their investments in the name of re-nationalization.

Mongolians want what every nation wants; clean air, economic opportunity, a fair and representative government, and celebration of their rich history. Faced with its current set of issues, it remains to be seen whether Mongolia can achieve all of these at once. In a nation of just over 3 million, Mongolia’s complex mix of social, political, legal, and cultural issues will no doubt evolve in the coming years.

#OliviaAvery #Mongolia #Environment

[1] Reform and The Birth of Democracy, Britannica.com (last accessed Oct. 4, 2019) https://www.britannica.com/place/Mongolia/Reform-and-the-birth-of-democracy.

[2] Richard Pomfret, Transition and Democracy in Mongolia, 52 Eu. Asia Studies 149, 152 (2000).

[3] See Id. at

[4] Frank Langfitt, Mineral-Rich Mongolia Rapidly Becoming ‘Mine-golia’, NPR Morning Edition (May 21, 2012) https://www.npr.org/2012/05/21/152683549/mineral-rich-mongolia-rapidly-becoming-minegolia?singlePage=true?singlePage=true.  

[5] Id.

[6] Lucy Hornby, Mongolia: Living From Loan to Loan, Financial Times (Sept. 12, 2016) https://www.ft.com/content/4055d944-78cd-11e6-a0c6-39e2633162d5.

[7] This Might Yurt-Hurt; Mongolia’s Finances, Economist (Feb. 25, 2017) https://www.economist.com/asia/2017/02/25/the-imf-bails-mongolia-out-again.

[8] Lucy Hornby, Mongolia Mining Corruption Probe Snares Former PM, Financial Times (Apr. 3, 2018) https://www.ft.com/content/9224cd16-3703-11e8-8eee-e06bde01c544.

[9] Peter Dizikes, The Surprising Story of Mongolian Shamanism, MIT News (Dec. 16, 2013) http://news.mit.edu/2013/the-surprising-story-of-mongolian-shamanism-1216.

[10] See Rod Austin, ‘An Example to All’: The Mongolian Herders Who Took on a Corporate Behemoth – and Won, The Guardian (Apr. 8, 2019) https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/apr/08/mongolian-herders-corporate-behemoth.

[11] The Slow and Deadly Dzud In Mongolia, BBC (May 14, 2016) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35983912.

[12] Joseph Hincks, Life in the Most Polluted Capital in the World, Time (Mar. 23, 2018) https://time.com/longform/ulan-bator-mongolia-most-polluted-capital/.

[13] David Stanway, Democratic But Tiedup, Mongolia Braces for Political Change, Taipei Times (Jul. 2, 2019) http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2019/07/02/2003717953.

[14] Anand Tumurtogoo, Mongolia’s President is Slicing Away Its Hard-Won Democracy, ForeignPolicy.com (Mar. 29, 2019) https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/03/29/mongolias-president-is-slicing-away-its-hard-won-democracy/.

[15] Id.

[16] Boldsaikhan Sambuu & Aubrey Mernarnd, here’s How Democracy is Eroding in Mongolia, Wash. Post (Apr. 3, 2019) https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/04/03/heres-how-democracy-is-eroding-mongolia/.

[17] Lkhagva Erdene & Sergey Radchenko, The Mysterious Sale of Mongolia’s Erdenet Mine, The Diplomat (July 9, 2016) https://thediplomat.com/2016/07/the-mysterious-sale-of-mongolias-erdenet-mine/.