Mongolian Matters: Mongolian Crisis: the other side

The UB Post:

Last Friday, 39 of 76 parliament members voted to accept the resignations of MPRP party ministers, leading to the end of the current government. Most of the Democratic Party members abstained from voting. In addition to the 29 MPRP votes, the Democratic Party: M.Enkhsaikhan, J.Narantsatsralt, J.Batkhuyag, and M.Sonompil, the Republican Party: B.Jargalsaikhan, the People's Party's L.Gundalai, and the Motherland Party's S.Otgonbayar, B.Erdenebat, Ts.Jargal and B.Tserenbaljir voted yes. (emphasis mine, gv)

I have to confess I didn't notice before, but when I read this passage in the UB post yesterday it suddenly dawned on me that actually all presidential candidates of last years election - except the one who won, of course - vote in favor of the new cabinet (indicated in bold). Also the one that was going to "crush" corruption. All parties previously united in the Motherland Democratic Coalition - except of course the always straightforward Civil Will Party - have people voting for the new government. Even more surprisingly MP Gundalai (indicated in bold, italic) joined them as well. For those who have been around for sometimes, they might remember this rebellious member of parliament always provoking with mediagenic protests against the MPRP.

It seems Elbegdorj was not stabbed in the back by the MPRP, but by his own democrats. It reads there were only 29 MPRP votes (out of 38), which means they never were able to pull it through without the 10 votes from the democrats, and of course the MPRP would have never started the whole thing if they would not have been sure they would pull it through.

In the end it is what Yan pointed out in a comment to the previous post:

I personally think a major stimulus behind the recent developments was self-interest - another common feature of Mongolian history.

Yan also made me aware of the comment of Chris Kaplonski

While ... the move by MAHN (MPRP -gv) goes against the spirit of democracy... we shouldn't see this as a return to communism or anything, as I've seen one or two of the more hysterical commentators suggest. (link mine - gv)

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3 Comments:

At Tue Jan 24, 07:18:00 pm GMT+8, Anonymous said...: The missing MPRP votes might be those of the ministers from the Elbegdorj government, who apparently abstained (due to some legal provision?).
At Wed Jan 25, 01:18:00 am GMT+8, Anonymous said...: That is an intersting and certainly plausible possibility. Thanks!
At Fri Jan 27, 05:41:00 am GMT+8, Anonymous said...: I think this doesn't bode well for Mongolia, but I think there is some credibility to the idea that we ought to wait and see what happens. Perhaps the Democratic Coalition felt they were not able to get enough done from a continually defensive minority stance.
But I also think it's a bit insulting to the people who came out in big numbers to support the Coalition (and went through all the trouble in 2004) to just fold up the cards and say, "OK, we tried, but that's all over. Back to business as usual." It's a bad precedent to set.