Posted on 7/1/2008

On July 1st, a riot broke out in the capital of Ulaanbaatar in response to opposition concerns about election fraud during the June 29th Parliamentary election vote. Five people were killed, and the headquarters of the ruling Mongolian Peoples Revolutionary Party (MPRP) was torched. Collateral fire damage also largely destroyed an adjacent national art gallery, including most of the art inside and the national moriin hur (horse head fiddle) collection. It was the first non-peaceful election in Mongolia since the return of democracy in 1991. A state of emergency was immediately declared, but the measure was lifted and peace was restored before the beginning of the national Nadaam holiday on July 11th.

Mongolia’s Nadaam festivities transpired peacefully throughout the country, but a political impasse continued to block the convening of Parliament. With the MPRP claiming a clear but narrow majority in the election—even with several seats still in dispute—opposition Democratic Party (DP) members who were elected to Parliament on June 29th refused to take the oath of office. By the end of July, the impasse continued and there remained no quorum in the State Great Hural.

U.S. Ambassador Mark Minton traveled to the far-eastern Dornod Aimag in July, visiting the field operations of the USAID-funded GER and Judicial Reform projects. He also visited the USAID-funded Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) project on the vast eastern steppes, along with representatives of The Nature Conservancy (TNC). While the WCS project is being extended, and the GER project will likely continue in a somewhat different format after USAID funding ends this year, the Judicial Reform Project is preparing for closeout in 2008.