THE vast, barren homeland of Genghis Khan has shown once again that its politics can be as harsh as its climate. Nambaryn Enkhbayar, Mongolia’s British-educated Prime Minister suffered a surprise defeat yesterday when his party lost half its parliamentary seats, despite monopolising 90 per cent of all billboards in Ulan Bator, the capital, during the campaign.

Not a single poll had predicted the downfall of the former Communist, who sees Tony Blair as his role model and who translated James Joyce into his native tongue at Leeds University in the 1980s.

The Opposition now has 25 days in which to form a new government and replace him. The domination of Mongolian politics by leaders trained in Britain is likely to continue. Oyun Sanjaasurengin, a geologist educated at Cambridge University, heads a powerful faction in the Motherland Democratic Coalition and is one of the contenders for the Prime Minister’s post.

Oyun, as she is known — her second name is used only on official documents — worked for Rio Tinto, the London-based minerals company, after finishing her PhD at Cambridge in 1996. She would probably still be in London if it had not been for the assassination in 1998 of her brother, Zorig, who led Mongolia’s democracy movement.

There are countless theories in Mongolia as to why Zorig was stabbed to death in his own flat in the capital, including problems with gambling syndicates, political rivalry and problems with the issuing of government licences.

Oyun won a by-election for his parliamentary seat and eventually formed an unruly horde of opposition groups into a punchy coalition, overcoming daunting hurdles.

The ruling Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party (MPRP) refused to admit defeat last night and appealed to the general election commission to investigate allegations of vote-buying. A party spokesman said: “The MPRP is, in particular, concerned with the organised movement of large numbers of non- residents into constituencies where their employers are candidates for the Motherland Democratic Coalition.”

In a nomadic and sparsely populated country, where most of the 2.7 million people live in their own yurts, the movement of voters across constituency borders can have a significant effect on election results. Voting is not easy. Most voters ride horses to reach polling stations set up in felt tents dotted across constituencies bigger than most European countries. Yet the urge to take part in the polls is strong: at the last election turnout was 92 per cent.

The victorious coalition rejected the allegations of fraud. “I’m sure we won,” Gundalai, an opposition MP, said. “We have at least 50 per cent of the seats.”

Mr Enkhbayar has held power for four years, during which time he began the process of turning the once entirely pastoral nation into a modern industrial state. He traces his reformist zeal back to his time in Thatcher’s Britain as a student at Leeds, where he observed the implosion of the Labour Party and the unions.

Britain’s attraction for young Mongolian politicians most likely dates back to 1963, when it became the first Western country to establish diplomatic relations with what was then a Soviet satellite state.

Mongolia began holding elections in 1990 and has seen two democratic changes of power. The former Communists lost control of the country in 1996, but retook it four years later, before losing it again in the latest election.

“The turnout appears to be more active than four years ago,” an election official said. “This is probably because there has been only one party in power and people want to have both sides in parliament.”

Steppes to democracy

• Modern Mongolia covers more than 1.5 million square kilometres of central Asia, six times that of the UK
• Its population is 2.4 million, a third of whom live in Ulan Bator, the capital. Many of the others are nomadic herdsmen living in traditional yurts or gers
• More than half its area is mountains, rising to the 14,350ft peak of Khuiten in the Altai range in the west. The rest is steppe and desert, including the Gobi
• Under Genghis Khan (1162—1227), the Mongol empire ran from the Yellow Sea to the Mediterranean. After centuries of Chinese rule, it became a Soviet satellite in the early 20th century, making a peaceful change to democracy after the collapse of communism

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