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Voters head to the polls in Mongolia

An elderly woman walks toward a voting box to cast her ballot at a polling station in Ulan Bator, Mongolia, yesterday. PHOTO: AP

After a campaign dominated by promises to end widespread poverty, Mongolians were voting for a new president yesterday, with polls showing the candidate of the former communist ruling party leading three rivals.

If none of the four candidates wins more than 50 percent, a run-off would be held June 5 between the top two.

Voters began lining up even before polls opened at 7am, many wearing traditional Mongolian costumes just for the occasion. Voter turnout is typically very high in Mongolia -- in the last presidential vote it was 83 percent -- a legacy of communist rule before 1990 when voting was compulsory.

But unlike under communism, "now we can choose," said Janchiv Tserev, 82, who wore his World War II medals pinned to his knee-length maroon tunic.

"Before we could vote for only one person. Now there are four candidates," he said.

For elderly nomads too frail to make it to their voting site, poll workers took ballot boxes to them -- driving out in sport-utility vehicles to the round white tents that dot Mongolia's grasslands.

"It's good to be old, because people come out and take our vote," said Batsukh Tseveenchimed, 62, as she offered bread and tea to the six poll workers -- including opposition party monitors -- who descended on her tent.

"All the candidates sounded the same to me, so I just voted for my old party," she said later of Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, which governed the country under communism.

"We know that party. That's the party that used to rule Mongolia," she said.

Older voters' loyalty to the ex-communist MPRP has helped put its candidate Nambariin Enkhbayar ahead in opinion polls. The MPRP gave up its monopoly on power in 1990 and has since been voted out and back into power.

Mongolia's economy collapsed after Soviet subsidies ended, and MPRP supporters say they hope the party's experience in government will bring greater stability.

Opposition parties complain that MPRP members still dominate the local election commissions that register voters and staff the polls. Activists demonstrated in the capital earlier this month against the election bodies and said they would be on guard against voter intimidation.

International observers were visiting polling sites yesterday to investigate any complaints.

The Democratic Party's Mendsaikhanin Enkhsaikhan draws his support from anti-communists, who defied police to take the streets in 1990 and bring down one-party rule.

He advocates direct subsidies to poor families, lower taxes for private businesses, and keeping a larger share of profits from foreign mining operations.

The Democrats are hurt by division within their ranks and the memory of their term in power in 1996-2000, when a coalition of anti-communist parties splintered and collapsed.

The other two candidates say Mongolia needs an alternative to the larger parties.

The Republican Party's Bazarsadyn Jargalsaikhan is one of the country's richest men. His Buyan Co processes cashmere, and he says his success as a businessman shows he can bring prosperity.

The Motherland Party's Badarchyn Erdenebat supports a national referendum to give more power to the presidency, in a country where parliament is splintered among many parties and the prime minister changes frequently.

The current president, Natsagiin Bagabandi, is from the MPRP.

The final results are expected today.
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