The statue of Lenin still stands outside the Red Hero Hotel. But it is George W. Bush and the American Dream that Prime Minister Nambar Enkhbayar invokes when talking up his formerly communist party.
A decade after they discarded communism, Mongolians swept Enkhbayar's party back into power last year, giving it 72 of the 76 seats in parliament in this vast land sandwiched between China and Russia. Today, the party that ruled Mongolia for 70 years as a Soviet ally hopes to seal its comeback by winning another term for President Natsagiin Bagabandi, its deputy chairman in the communist era.
Many countries that elected anti-communist reformers after shaking off Soviet domination have since re-embraced their old leaders, notably Mongolia. The Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party already holds all of Mongolia's 21 provincial governorships, and victory in today's voting would put it in charge of nearly every high government office.
But as Mongolia becomes a virtual one-party state, the president's followers have undergone drastic change and now espouse multiparty democracy and radical free-market economics.
"We recognize that private property is the most important kind of understanding in a democratic society," Enkhbayar said.
Already, private business accounts for 70 percent of Mongolia's economic output.
Now the government plans to sell the state airline and other major industries and turn over control of state radio and television to independent boards of governors.
"Our goal is to make government more efficient -- just like George W. Bush," Enkhbayar said in an interview. "The government's role should be ... to give opportunity to each person to become something, like the American Dream."
As for that 9m statue of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin, he said: "What's more important is to remove the statues in your heart."
From the outset of its post-communist era, Mongolians were zealous reformers. The country of 2.4 million people won praise for quickly privatizing state companies and turning over millions of state-owned sheep and camels to families of nomadic herders.
But then came years of scandal and of weak governments rising and falling rapidly, and in 1997 the ex-communists began their comeback with Bagabandi's election. But he quickly deadlocked with the old parliament.
Things should have gone more smoothly after the former communists captured the parliament last year, but the government now faces daunting problems: rising crime and joblessness, and two harsh winters that have killed some five million head of livestock.
Bagabandi supporters say they yearn for stability.
"This is not totalitarian. A one-party system will be more stable than having many parties," said Byambaa Tsermaa, 50, a retired postal employee who sells children's clothes in the Ulan Bator bazaar to supplement her monthly pension of 17,600 tugruk (US$16).
In Mongolia's parliamentary system the prime minister runs the government but the president can veto legislation and Cabinet appointments, making his cooperation key to changing policy.
Bagabandi's leading challenger, former parliament speaker Radnaasumbereliin Gonchigdorj of the Democratic Party, argues that the country needs an opposition president to counterbalance parliament.
Gonchigdorj supporters accuse Bagabandi's party of indulging in its old communist habits, abusing its control of the government work force and state media to boost his campaign.
Party leaders deny it and say the Democrats were just as bad.
"This was quite a dirty campaign, with lots of rumors," Enkhbayar said with a sigh.
The prime minister, 42, is part of a newer generation of leaders who give the ruling party a younger, technocratic face. Built like a wrestler, he made his name as a literature scholar, translating Joyce and Dickens into Mongolian. He studied in Moscow and at Leeds University in Britain.
Others in the ruling party still yearn for the days of ambitious government development programs, helped by lavish Soviet aid.
"It would be better if socialism had lasted 10 more years, until 2000," said Sangaa Bayar, the president's chief of staff.
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
INSPIRING: Taiwan has been a model in the Asia-Pacific region with its democratic transition, free and fair elections and open society, the vice president-elect said Taiwan can play a leadership role in the Asia-Pacific region, vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) told a forum in Taipei yesterday, highlighting the nation’s resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges. “Not only can Taiwan help, but Taiwan can lead ... not only can Taiwan play a leadership role, but Taiwan’s leadership is important to the world,” Hsiao told the annual forum hosted by the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation think tank. Hsiao thanked Taiwan’s international friends for their long-term support, citing the example of US President Joe Biden last month signing into law a bill to provide aid to Taiwan,
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
STATE OF THE NATION: The legislature should invite the president to deliver an address every year, the TPP said, adding that Lai should also have to answer legislators’ questions The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday proposed inviting president-elect William Lai (賴清德) to make a historic first state of the nation address at the legislature following his inauguration on May 20. Lai is expected to face many domestic and international challenges, and should clarify his intended policies with the public’s representatives, KMT caucus secretary-general Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) said when making the proposal at a meeting of the legislature’s Procedure Committee. The committee voted to add the item to the agenda for Friday, along with another similar proposal put forward by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The invitation is in line with Article 15-2