jrenich

If you’ve been watching the news lately you’ve probably heard that the Mongolian elections didn’t go down so hot. Our arrival to Mongolia was very busy and things had just quieted down enough for me to write writing you with everything that has been going on when this happened.

First of all I’ll just say we’re alive and well, the violence you’ve been seeing in the news was limited to the capital city which we are thankfully far away from. We have friends in the capital we’ve been checking up on but everyone seems to be ok.

Some quick background on what led up to the riots and violence. Elections in 2004 led to a tie between democratic and MNRP (communist) parties forcing Mongolia to operate under a coalition government for the past four years. It was supposed to lead to the parties working together more, instead it just led to 4 years of deadlock and indecision. So there was a lot at stake for this election. That plus some big money promises by both parties led to weeks of heavy competitive campaigning in the weeks leading up to the elections. Mongolia is also feeling a lot of pressure from Russia right now to allow more investment and business ownership by Russia within Mongolia which is making a lot of Mongolians unhappy with the government.

That much said, the elections took place last Sunday and on Monday morning the MNRP party announced victory before the official count was even done. The democratic party cried foul and accused the MNRP of corruption and buying off votes. By Monday evening there were 20,000 protestors in the streets of Ulan Bataar (the democratic party stronghold) outside of the MNRP headquarters. The proceeded to attack ill equip riot police and burn the MNRP headquarters, several cars/trucks and a nearby museum. Rioters also broke into offices and shops stealing whatever they could carry and burning what the left behind.

By midnight a state of emergency was called by the government for four days. The army was called in and armed soldiers and armored personal carriers were on the street, the city center was shut down and a curfew from 10pm-8am put into place for 4 days. All internal TV stations except one were also shut down by the goverment, there were reports that non-government news stations were pressured to not broadcast the violence as well.

Day three and four (today) have been much calmer and the streets are clear again and cleanup has begun. MNRP has officially won the elections and will run the country for the next four years. Whether or not they won fairly or not is still unknown and will probably stay that way. Both parties have corrupt officials and use illegal campaigning tactics and promises. It’s really hard to get accurate information on the number of people that were involved in the riots (my numbers may be off even) or how many police were injured. It seems though that the main night of the riots there was 20,000 strong crowd, 300+ police officers were injured, and 5 people died. Over 700 rioters are in custody with more sure to follow. It’s reported the majority are young people.

There is also talk about missing ballot boxes, bus loads of people showing up at polling stations just before the polls closed, people receiving money for reading names off incorrectly on the ballots. There’s also areas that are nearly 100% pro-democratic party that somehow had a MNRP official voted into office. There’s really too much to sift through to really know what is going on. Maybe the next couple of weeks will tell more. I think the most important part is that the riots have calmed and now all we can hope for is for the government to investigate what really went on and make a some decisions based off of that.

If you want to know more about what has been going on I suggest the following blogs:

http://www.terrycom.net/blog/
(suggested reading on this blog is the english letter to US supporters from the head of the democratic party)
http://asiangypsy.blogspot.com/

Also, if you want to see some photos of the riots see these two pages:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/william_/sets/72157605935378253/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bataa/

I’m not really sure what I think about the elections yet. Obviously the information coming out of the two parties is heavily swayed in their own benefit, somewhere in the middle there is truth about what really happened. We can only pray that the truth comes out and those who are truly responsible for what happened will be brought to light. It’s hard to know what to believe and what not to.

Thank you all for your prayers and emails making sure we’re alright. We’re perfectly peaceful up here in our little city far from the capital. We’ll keep you updated as things happen.

Signing out. Normal newsletter coming soon…