Whew.
There is a lot of movement in Mongolia. Much excitement.
So, as you may know, Mongolia's Parliamentary Election was on June 29th. This event was one of the main reasons that I am here. I had been working for a Member of Parliament on her re-election campaign, and I had been touring her district, translating for foreign journalists and supporting my candidate. The days leading up to the election were filled with campaign activities. On the day of the election, I was still quite busy translating for a reporter. So, throughout the day, we took photos, had interviews, and attended press conferences - I had a press badge, so I got into a bunch of places (I really liked that kind of access, made me feel special).
Before I get into the details of what happened, here is a brief (or as brief as I could make it while still making sense) explanation of Mongolia's political climate. Mongolia has many parties - 12 official ones, I think. The two main ones are called Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (MPRP), which has leftist leaning, socialist policies, and the Mongolian Democratic Party, which is more to the right. My party is called Civil Will Party, which is the third largest party and has anti corruption as its first issue while having center-right economic and social policies. MPRP has a very old history, dating back almost eighty years. The Democratic Party was started in 1990, during the fall of communism. So, during the election these two parties duke it out, while my party tries to keep (and hopefully increase) its two seats (out of 76) in Parliament. So, during the few days before the election, almost every single person, from the barely eligible to vote to the voters with more experience, with whom I talked said that they supported the Democratic Party. Plus, the Democratic Party, along with other smaller parties and independent candidates, was polling a lot higher than the MPRP because people believe that the MPRP is corrupt. However, the MPRP has a lot of support from the voters with more experience. To add to the mess, the two biggest parties had this idiotic (my personal opinion, but, hey, this is my personal blog) policy of dividing all the countries mining wealth with every single citizen. The Democratic Party promised to give 1 million Tugrugs (about $1000) to every single citizen, while the MPRP promised to give 1.5 million Tugrugs (about $1500), both without thinking about inflation or new citizens who would be born (would they get the money, too?).
So, the day of the election arrived, and the voting seemed to be going smoothly. Voting stations closed at 10 p.m. and the counting began. The counting continued for a long, long time, and, at around 3 a.m. all the data showed that the Democratic Party was winning. However, at around 5 a.m. the MPRP suddenly started winning by huge margins. And, early in the morning, the MPRP announced that they had won before all the counting was finished. They started celebrating and telling the citizens how happy they were. At noon, it was rumored that MPRP had won 50+ seats out of the 76. When I heard this, I thought to myself "Wait a minute. Hadn't the Democratic party been polling higher the entire time? Hadn't during the night, the Democratic party been winning?" Or something to that effect. I met up with my reporter dude, and we went over to party headquarters to see what was going on. There I saw on the news that people from the various smaller parties and from the Democratic party were marching on the MPRP headquarters, which is a seven story square building. This is when bigger things started happening. I grabbed my press badge and took a taxi over to the MPRP headquarter with my reporter friend. When we arrived, there was a three-man thick Police ring surrounding the MPRP building. People were throwing stones at the building and at the police; these stones were landing a couple of feet away from where I was standing. The reporter and I went past the policemen and were standing next to the MPRP building, taking pictures. About every twenty minutes, the crowd (which was growing larger and larger) rushed towards the building, screaming, "MPRP Leave!" When this happened, the police used their sticks to beat the crowd back. The only thing that the crown wanted was for the MPRP officials to come out and say something, for them to apologize and to acknowledge something. However, they didn't. Hence, the violence escalated and grew out of control. At around 5 p.m., the people rushed through and finally broke through. The police then started using tear gas to push the crowd back. At this point, all the windows of the MPRP building was broken, and stones and sticks and debris were strewn around the premises. When the police got violent, the majority of the crowd (including me) ran away, literally. We ran. I ran with my backpack over my head because stones were flying everywhere. I ran to my mom's office at the Foreign Ministry. When I got there, my uncle came over and picked up my mom and me because the Foreign Ministry is right across the street from the MPRP building. At home, we turned on the news and watched what happened. The rioters burned the MPRP building, angry over the corruption. Even more scary, people were getting hurt left and right, and the crowd was getting even wilder. Here, the police fired shots and dispersed the crowd using water guns. The rioters set the MPRP headquarters and one of the surrounding building alight. By 3 a.m. the next morning, the police had arrested over 800 people. The final tally so far: 5 dead, over 300 injured, and 800+ arrested. There are soldiers in the streets now, and the parliament is in an emergency session to decided what to do. Was there fraud? Should there be re-do? Who is to blame? These issues are being discussed.
Our family is glued to the TV, although only one TV channel is allowed to broadcast.
More Posts with pictures to come.
Here's one:
PICTURE CREDIT: Associated Press
