Tsenguun Saruulsaikhan shakes hands with a colleague before receiving her Parliament membership card. | Photo credit: AP
Tsenguun Saruulsaikhan, a young and new member of the Mongolian parliament, is dissatisfied with below-cost electricity rates, which she says show that her country has not yet completely shaken off its socialist past.
Most of Mongolia’s power stations date back to the Soviet era and outages are common in some areas. Heavy smog envelops the capital Ulaanbaatar in winter as many people still burn coal to heat their homes.
“It’s stuck with what it looked like 40, 50 years ago,” said Ms. Tsenguun, who is part of an emerging generation of leaders who are puzzling over their country’s future after three decades of democracy. “And that’s why we have to change it.”
In transition phase
Democracy in Mongolia is in a transition phase, Ms. Tsenguun said.
Mongolia became a democracy in the early 1990s after six decades of one-party communist rule. Many Mongolians welcomed the end of repression and the resulting freedoms, but have since resented parliament and the creation of political parties. It is widely believed that lawmakers are enriching themselves and their big business supporters with the country’s mineral wealth, rather than using it to develop a country where poverty is widespread.
Voters delivered an election setback to the ruling Mongolian People’s Party last week, leaving it still in charge but with a narrow majority of 68 of the 126 seats in parliament.
Ms Tsenguun was one of 42 winning candidates from the main opposition Democratic Party, which made a major comeback after being reduced to a handful of seats in the 2016 and 2020 elections.
She articulates a vision for Mongolia that aligns with the small Republicans in the United States. According to her, too many people think that the government will take care of them, and that the large budget only fuels corruption. The government should be as invisible as possible, she said, and give people the freedom and responsibility to build their own lives.
The detention of a few journalists in recent months has fueled concerns that the government is in decline, eroding the freedoms that democracy brought.
Ms Tsenguun said her age group, which only knows the post-communist era, should push back.
The ruling party, which also governed the country during the communist period, is well entrenched and enjoys the support of many older voters.
Retired community leaders showed up before polling stations opened at 7am in a neighborhood in Ulaanbaatar. Elders are pioneers, one said, whose primary role is to encourage others to vote.
Younger voters have not historically voted in large numbers, but anecdotal reports suggest their turnout may have increased in last week’s elections in Ulaanbaatar. Nearly half of the country’s 3.4 million inhabitants live in the capital.
The People’s Party has tried to reposition itself in response to public discontent. In 2021, it appointed Oyun-Erdene Luvsannamsrai, a relatively young prime minister with a master’s degree from Harvard University.
However, it is unclear how much the government will change and whether democracy in Mongolia is truly on the cusp of a new era.
