Something Amiss in Land of Nomads
Mongolia’s president likes to call his country the freest in its region, a proud achievement for a nation squeezed between Russia and China. But as the detention of a former president over corruption allegations drags on ahead of key elections, analysts are asking whether the case risks eroding Mongolia’s democratic system.
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden praised the nation’s democratic system on a visit there last August, saying its freedoms “captured the imagination of the world.” George W. Bush said much the same in his 2005 visit.
But last week, a district court judge in Ulan Bator extended the detention of former president Enkhbayar Nambar for up to two months, meaning he can be held until the eve of parliamentary elections on June 28. Mr. Enkhbayar hopes to join the 76-seat State Great Khural, as the parliament is known, and possibly contest the presidential election in 2013.
A range of people inside and outside Mongolia, including Mr. Enkhbayar’s supporters, voice doubt the corruption allegations are the only reason he was detained and are suspicious that political influence played a part in the national corruption watchdog’s pursuit of him. Observers say the political comeback of a man who served as president between 2005 and 2009, and earlier as prime minister and speaker of the parliament, are likely major factors too.
Mongolia’s government has said virtually nothing about the case and hasn’t responded to numerous requests for comment.
A wide range of the political spectrum stands to lose with the re-emergence of Mr. Enkhbayar on the public stage, analysts say. A recent poll determined he is more popular than the president and the prime minister.
In recent years, Mr. Enkhbayar broke from the party of the current prime minister, Sukhbaatar Batbold, and formed the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party. The name is a reprise of the one used historically by his previous party, which ruled Mongolia during the years the nation was a satellite of the Soviet Union.
Mr. Enkhbayar’s primary rival is the current president, Elbegdorj Tsakhia, who hails from the Democratic Party, defeated him in the 2009 presidential election and installed new management at the top of the agency that ordered the former president’s arrest.
That 2009 presidential vote swung to Mr. Elbegdorj in part because of public distrust that built up after demonstrations against the result of 2008 parliamentary elections ended with a handful of deaths during riots. The post-riot finger-pointing continues to sow discord today.
For the coming election, hopes were that 2008-type irregularities would be minimized with new elector identification cards and voting machines but that system isn’t likely to be ready. The Enkhbayar case comes amid a mining boom that is giving the Mongolian economy strong underpinnings but requires big decisions.
The corruption allegations date to Mr. Enkhbayar’s time in office, including misuse of donations to a Buddhist charity in 2000, use of government money to deliver eight volumes of books to South Korea over three years beginning in 2005, plus a murky hotel-purchase deal in 2007. According to a translation of the agency’s complaint, provided by Mr. Enkhbayar’s family, the corruption investigation was opened last October.
Mr. Enkhbayar denies the charges through his attorney. He hasn’t appeared in court or been formally charged.
The drama began at dawn on April 13 when Mr. Enkhbayar was forcibly removed from a home in Ulan Bator by a phalanx of riot police, who dragged him into a van wearing no shoes and with a bag over his head. (after minute 17 here) They dropped him in a prison in a province south of the capital.
A group of lawyers calls him a political prisoner and, like Mr. Enkhbayar’s family, worries he is being mistreated. The former president sent word last week he was beginning a hunger strike.
The arrest was ordered by the country’s six-year-old corruption watchdog, the Independent Agency Against Corruption. Late last year, the agency’s leadership was shaken up by President Elbegdorj.
Among those installed was Khurts Bat, as deputy director. Mr. Khurts has an unusual resume for such a post.
A year or so after Mr. Khurts arrived in London in 2010, the U.K. extradited him to Germany in connection with a European arrest warrant. European officials allege that in 2003 when Mr. Khurts was head of Mongolia’s National Security Council, he participated in the kidnapping, drugging, imprisonment and forcible repatriation to Mongolia of a dissident suspected in the 1998 murder of a former top government official. Mr. Khurts couldn’t be reached for comment.
Last September, Germany released Mr. Khurts shortly before a visit to Mongolia by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Corruption is a serious problem in Mongolia. The country has fallen sharply on Transparency International’s annual rankings, to 120 of 183 countries, in the years since the watchdog agency was created in 2006.
A political analyst, Alan Wachman of Tufts University, said it is too early to know the genuineness of the charges facing Mongolia’s former president, but he says Mongolia is looking more like some of its democratic neighbors for a worrying reason. “At this stage, all one can know with any certainty is that the arrest of the former president does fit an unhappy pattern for former presidents in Asian democracies,” he said by email, citing examples from South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines.
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden praised the nation’s democratic system on a visit there last August, saying its freedoms “captured the imagination of the world.” George W. Bush said much the same in his 2005 visit.
But last week, a district court judge in Ulan Bator extended the detention of former president Enkhbayar Nambar for up to two months, meaning he can be held until the eve of parliamentary elections on June 28. Mr. Enkhbayar hopes to join the 76-seat State Great Khural, as the parliament is known, and possibly contest the presidential election in 2013.
A range of people inside and outside Mongolia, including Mr. Enkhbayar’s supporters, voice doubt the corruption allegations are the only reason he was detained and are suspicious that political influence played a part in the national corruption watchdog’s pursuit of him. Observers say the political comeback of a man who served as president between 2005 and 2009, and earlier as prime minister and speaker of the parliament, are likely major factors too.
Mongolia’s government has said virtually nothing about the case and hasn’t responded to numerous requests for comment.
A wide range of the political spectrum stands to lose with the re-emergence of Mr. Enkhbayar on the public stage, analysts say. A recent poll determined he is more popular than the president and the prime minister.
In recent years, Mr. Enkhbayar broke from the party of the current prime minister, Sukhbaatar Batbold, and formed the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party. The name is a reprise of the one used historically by his previous party, which ruled Mongolia during the years the nation was a satellite of the Soviet Union.
Mr. Enkhbayar’s primary rival is the current president, Elbegdorj Tsakhia, who hails from the Democratic Party, defeated him in the 2009 presidential election and installed new management at the top of the agency that ordered the former president’s arrest.
That 2009 presidential vote swung to Mr. Elbegdorj in part because of public distrust that built up after demonstrations against the result of 2008 parliamentary elections ended with a handful of deaths during riots. The post-riot finger-pointing continues to sow discord today.
For the coming election, hopes were that 2008-type irregularities would be minimized with new elector identification cards and voting machines but that system isn’t likely to be ready. The Enkhbayar case comes amid a mining boom that is giving the Mongolian economy strong underpinnings but requires big decisions.
The corruption allegations date to Mr. Enkhbayar’s time in office, including misuse of donations to a Buddhist charity in 2000, use of government money to deliver eight volumes of books to South Korea over three years beginning in 2005, plus a murky hotel-purchase deal in 2007. According to a translation of the agency’s complaint, provided by Mr. Enkhbayar’s family, the corruption investigation was opened last October.
Mr. Enkhbayar denies the charges through his attorney. He hasn’t appeared in court or been formally charged.
The drama began at dawn on April 13 when Mr. Enkhbayar was forcibly removed from a home in Ulan Bator by a phalanx of riot police, who dragged him into a van wearing no shoes and with a bag over his head. (after minute 17 here) They dropped him in a prison in a province south of the capital.
A group of lawyers calls him a political prisoner and, like Mr. Enkhbayar’s family, worries he is being mistreated. The former president sent word last week he was beginning a hunger strike.
The arrest was ordered by the country’s six-year-old corruption watchdog, the Independent Agency Against Corruption. Late last year, the agency’s leadership was shaken up by President Elbegdorj.
Among those installed was Khurts Bat, as deputy director. Mr. Khurts has an unusual resume for such a post.
A year or so after Mr. Khurts arrived in London in 2010, the U.K. extradited him to Germany in connection with a European arrest warrant. European officials allege that in 2003 when Mr. Khurts was head of Mongolia’s National Security Council, he participated in the kidnapping, drugging, imprisonment and forcible repatriation to Mongolia of a dissident suspected in the 1998 murder of a former top government official. Mr. Khurts couldn’t be reached for comment.
Last September, Germany released Mr. Khurts shortly before a visit to Mongolia by German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Corruption is a serious problem in Mongolia. The country has fallen sharply on Transparency International’s annual rankings, to 120 of 183 countries, in the years since the watchdog agency was created in 2006.
A political analyst, Alan Wachman of Tufts University, said it is too early to know the genuineness of the charges facing Mongolia’s former president, but he says Mongolia is looking more like some of its democratic neighbors for a worrying reason. “At this stage, all one can know with any certainty is that the arrest of the former president does fit an unhappy pattern for former presidents in Asian democracies,” he said by email, citing examples from South Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines.
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