Mongolians enraged by multiple corruption scandals filled the streets of the capital to protest on Thursday even though temperatures fell below zero degrees Fahrenheit.
Protest organizers told Reuters there were 25,000 people in the streets of Ulaanbaatar demonstrating against the two main political parties and parliamentary speaker Enkhbold Miyegombo on Thursday. The protesters waved signs demanding Enkhbold’s resignation.
“Mongolians are very patient, but now we lose our patience. Enkhbold should resign. Shame on him that he makes this many people protest in this mid-winter cold,” a 61-year-old protester shivering in the -20 degrees Celsius air told Reuters.
The Mongolian parliament has effectively come to a standstill, its regular session delayed on Thursday for the seventh time in a row because a multi-partisan group of representatives calling themselves the Mongolian People’s Union is boycotting the legislature. President Khaltmaa Battulga on Wednesday requested measures that would allow legislative sessions to resume without the boycotters if necessary.
Members of the coalition accuse Enkhbold and the ruling parties, the Mongolian People’s Party and the Democratic Party, of making millions by selling powerful government appointments. An opposition politician quoted by Reuters also blamed Enkhbold for increasing “air pollution, people’s poverty, and wealth inequality” when he was the mayor of Ulaanbaatar.
Corruption scandals engulfed a number of high-ranking officials, two members of the cabinet, and 14 members of parliament accused of funneling government funds to friends and family. The money was allegedly looted from a program intended to help Mongolia develop small business enterprises instead of remaining dependent on mineral exports.
The beginning of December saw Prime Minister Ukhnaaglin Khurelsukh narrowly surviving a vote of no confidence initiated by his own party after weeks of unrest in Ulaanbaatar. Khurelsukh described the effort to oust him as a plot hatched by the same corrupt party leaders derisively referred to as “MANAN” by protesters. Manan is the Mongolian word for “fog,” but also functions as an acronym combining the names of the two majority parties.
Khurelsukh said both parties are controlled by a group of powerful families determined to enrich themselves at public expense. He defended himself as a corruption fighter under attack by MANAN-controlled legislators. Complicating this narrative was the fact that eight of the parliamentarians implicated in corruption scandals voted to retain him as Prime Minister.
Khurelsukh struck back with his own motion to dismiss Enkhbold as parliamentary speaker, claiming he was interfering with efforts to resolve yet another corruption scandal, this one involving the abuse of government power to tip the 2016 parliamentary elections. Observers expect the next election in 2020 to be brutal for incumbents as angry voters demand a massive house cleaning.
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