On July 10, the Central Election Commission of Mongolia will announce the results of the elections to the Great People's Khural, the country's parliament. However, the preliminary results have already been bypassed by news agencies around the world: tanks on the streets of Ulaanbaatar, 5 dead, 300 people, including 107 police officers in hospitals, looted shops, a burnt building of the ruling party, burned paintings and a collection of folk musical instruments in an art gallery … What made 8,000 people take to the streets?
Mongolia is a quiet state. Squeezed between two giants, Russia and China, this country of just under 3 million people tried its best not to attract the attention of the giants: Mongolia gained independence from China in 1921 and emerged from the tutelage of the USSR since its death in 1991- m. "No news is good news" - this became the main principle of its existence and the guarantee of independence. Twice in recent years, presidents have changed in the country - peacefully and without cataclysms, political life has flowed just as peacefully: there are 15 parties in the country, the two main ones are the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (MPRP, the successor to the Communist Party) and the Democratic Party of Mongolia (PDM), which are quite enjoyed themselves calmly. Silence broke on July 1, when mass riots broke out in the capital and a state of emergency was declared for the first time in the country's history. Again, for the first time in recent decades - since the suppression of the uprising of lamas in the early 1930s - the clash of political opponents in Mongolia was accompanied by outrages, violence, shooting, and casualties.
Trigger
The trigger for the riots was the elections to the Great People's Khural. According to preliminary data, the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party received the majority of mandates (45) in the 76-seat parliament. PDM supporters felt that the results were rigged, and the ruling party used the administrative resource. Although international observers said that the elections were held without any major violations.
Such a sharp outburst of discontent, shocking many, of course, could not have arisen from scratch. A critical mass of unresolved problems has accumulated in society: a sharp gap in income levels between the poor and the rich, a massive outflow of Aratov pastoralists from nomads, excessive overpopulation of Ulaanbaatar, in which almost half of the country's inhabitants have concentrated in recent years, unemployment caused by this, overcrowding and monstrous air pollution in the city. The anti-government speech sounded like a formidable signal that it could not continue like this. The fact that there were no protracted bloody bacchanalia of the raging crowd is largely due to the high professional training of the Mongolian tsiriks (guards) of the internal troops. But one thing is clear: it was not only Mongolian society that split, the elites represented in the main parties split. And the reasons, apparently, are buried deep in the earth.
Gold and copper
One of the reasons for the protest that spilled onto the streets of Ulaanbaatar was a discussion about how the wealth recently discovered in the Mongolian bowels should be distributed. The giant deposits of Oyuutolgoy (26 million tons of copper and 800 tons of gold) and Tavantolgoy (5.4 billion tons of coal, with 1.5 billion tons of coking coal) have become the object of close attention of the giants of the world mining business, some of which have already entered the Mongolian economy (“ Ivanhoe Mines, Rio Tinto, Chinalco, etc.), others are preparing for this, including Russian ones (Severstal, Basic Element, etc.). On the agenda is the resolution of issues on the richest deposits of silver, fluorspar, oil, uranium and many others. As a matter of fact, every Mongol theoretically in the very near future can live no worse than every Kuwaitis.
Today, foreign companies can have 49% of mining, how the remaining 51% will be distributed is up to the Mongolian government to decide. The whole question is exactly how. The ruling MPRP proposes to distribute these gigantic wealth among national companies so that they themselves are engaged in mining and thereby create jobs. 1 . The PDM, which is fighting for power, declared during the elections that every Mongolian should receive dividends from natural resources by transferring them to special individual accounts.
However, it seems that people do not believe that the income from natural resources will be distributed fairly, regardless of which party is in power. 2 . This lack of trust, observers say, is what brought people to the streets.
Between three fires
Today, China is the largest buyer of Mongolian raw materials; in the trade balance of Mongolia, this giant still occupies the main place: it accounts for more than 70% of all Mongolian exports.
On the other hand, Russia is increasingly declaring its interests in this former satellite of the USSR. The state company Rosneft supplies more than 90% of oil to the country and plans to build 100 gas stations in Mongolia in the coming years. Plus, Russian companies already own 49% of Mongolian railways and the same stakes in its largest copper and gold mining companies. In May, Mongolian President Nambaryn Enkhbayar visited Moscow: at a meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, issues of further joint production of uranium and cooperation in the field of nuclear energy were discussed. Medvedev, according to media reports, said that soon the volume of trade between the two countries will exceed $1 billion and Russia will become Mongolia's second largest trading partner after China. The United States also has its own interests in the region, although so far the volume of trade of this giant with Mongolia, whose territory is smaller than Alaska, is only $120 million. There is no doubt that the world's giants will begin to fight for the country's wealth. Already started.
However, the role of raw material appendage creates many problems for Mongolia. There are all signs of the developing "Dutch disease" - inflation this year has already reached 15%, which has seriously hit the pockets of ordinary Mongolians, who so far only hear that their country is fabulously rich and that there are more minerals in terms of each Mongolian, than anywhere else in the world.
Whether the young Mongolian democracy - and the country is considered one of the most democratic in Asia - will withstand this onslaught of wealth and the interests of world powers, the question, as the July events showed, is by no means an idle one. And the answer is not obvious.
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1 According to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, unemployment in Mongolia is 3.3%.
2 The head of state in Mongolia is the president, but the head of government is usually the leader of the party with the majority in parliament.
