Freedom in the World 2001 - Mongolia

2001 Scores

Status: Free
Freedom Rating: 2.5
Civil Liberties: 3
Political Rights: 2

Overview

Promising to ease hardships stemming from the country's wrenching transition to a market economy, Mongolia's former Communist ruling party returned to power in a landslide victory in the July 2000 elections. Prime Minister Nambariin Enkhbayar took office pledging more government assistance for disadvantaged groups, improvements in health-care, and a slower pace of privatization of roughly 17 large state companies.

China controlled this vast Central Asian region for two centuries, until 1911, and again from 1919 until a Marxist revolt in 1921. The Soviet-backed Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (MPRP) formed a single-party Communist state in 1924. For the next 65 years Mongolia was a virtual republic of the Soviet Union.

Following a series of pro-democracy hunger strikes, the government ended the MPRP's status as the sole legal political party in May 1990. However, the MPRP easily defeated an unprepared opposition in Mongolia's first multiparty elections in July. In September 1990, parliament named the MPRP's Punsalmaagiyn Orchirbat as president.

After the country adopted a new constitution that created a unicameral parliament, the MPRP easily won legislative elections in 1992. In 1993, party hardliners forced Orchirbat off the MPRP ticket, but the president won reelection as the candidate of the two main opposition parties, the National Democratic Party (NDP) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP).

The economy returned to growth in 1994 after four years of contraction. However, the end of Soviet subsidies and the transition to a market economy continued to cause severe social hardship. Promising better economic management, the opposition won the June 1996 parliamentary elections to sweep the MPRP out of parliamentary power after 72 years. The NDP, SDP, and two smaller parties ran as the Democratic Union Coalition (DUC) and won 50 seats. Prime Minister Mendsaihan Enksaikhan, of the SDP, introduced a radical liberalization program of fiscal and monetary tightening, price decontrols, pension cuts, and tariff reductions. But the reforms coincided with a sharp fall in world prices for two of Mongolia's biggest foreign revenue earners, copper and cashmere, which contributed to huge budget and trade deficits.

With inflation and unemployment rising, the MPRP's Nachagyn Bagabandy, a former parliamentary chairman, ran a campaign stressing social issues and won the May 1997 presidential elections. Bagabandy got 60.8 percent of the vote against Orchirbat's 29.8 percent. Having lost the presidency, the fractious DUC also began to allow infighting to erode its performance and stability. Three DUC governments collapsed between April 1998 and July 1999.

The MPRP capitalized on the DUC's disarray to win 72 of the 76 seats in the July 2, 2000 parliamentary elections. Turnout was 75.8 percent. On July 26, parliament elected MPRP chairman Enkhbayar, 42, as prime minister. During the campaign, Enkhbayar had pledged to seek a "third way" between his party's still-powerful conservative wing and the government's rapid economic liberalization, which he said had increased social hardship. While the economy grew by 3.5 percent in 1999, poverty rates had doubled since 1991 and the state welfare system had largely collapsed. Moreover, the elections followed the worst winter in 30 years. Harsh weather conditions had killed 2.5 million livestock and caused thousands of nomadic families to lose their livelihood. Riven by infighting over the pace of reforms, the parties in the governing DUC contested the elections separately. The former communists followed their national-level triumph with a landslide victory in local elections in October.

Political Rights and Civil Liberties

Mongolians can change their government through elections. In a report on the July 2000 elections, the Washington-based International Republican Institute (IRI) said its monitoring teams did not observe any systematic irregularities. However, the IRI recommended that the election law be reviewed to ensure more uniform election administration.

The 1992 constitution vested executive powers in a prime minister and created a directly elected, 76-seat Great Hural (parliament). The constitution also vested some governmental powers in a president, who is directly elected for a four-year term. The president must approve candidates for prime minister and can veto legislation, subject to a two-thirds parliamentary override. President Bagabandy's rejection of several parliamentary nominees for prime minister in 1998 created a still-unresolved constitutional question over the correct role of the president in approving prime ministers.

The judiciary is independent, but judges receive low salaries and corruption is reportedly a problem. Conditions in pretrial detention and prisons are life-threatening. The United States State Department said in its annual human rights report for 1999 that 200 prisoners died in custody that year, mainly as the result of disease and poor prison management. Many inmates came into the prisons already suffering from illness or starvation because of the appalling conditions in police detention. Pretrial detention is often lengthy, which increases detainees' exposure to these conditions. New procedures have helped reduce the number of deaths per year, but implementation of the measures is limited in rural areas. Similarly, reforms have helped reduce incidences of police abuse of detainees and prisoners, although anecdotal evidence suggested that the reforms have had less impact in rural areas.

Mongolia has scores of private newspapers representing diverse viewpoints, although only about a dozen appear regularly. Radio is a key source of information in the countryside, and the one independent radio station reaches most areas. There are at least two private television services, each with limited reach. Foreign satellite and cable broadcasts are also available. A 1999 media law banned censorship of public information. The law also required the government to privatize all state-owned print media, and to transform the state television station and radio stations into a public broadcasting service headed by an independent board of governors. The actual privatization process has proceeded slowly. The law places the burden of proof on the defendants in slander and libel cases, which may have a chilling effect on the media.

Freedom of assembly and association continued to be respected. Women run many of the most effective nongovernmental organizations, including groups that organize voter-education programs and promote women's rights and child welfare. Women also make up a majority of university graduates, doctors, and lawyers, but they are underrepresented at the higher levels in government and the judiciary. Domestic violence continued to be a serious problem. Given Mongolia's dire economic problems, the government lacks the resources to deal adequately with the needs of children. School dropout rates are high, and there are several thousand street children in urban areas.

There is no official religion in this predominantly Buddhist country, and religious freedom is generally respected in practice. However, religious groups must register with the government. According to the U.S. State Department, in recent years the government has denied registration to some nonmainstream groups and forced them to close their offices and places of worship.

Trade unions are independent, although union membership continued to decline amid the privatization and restructuring of many large enterprises. Workers in sectors defined as essential cannot stage strikes. Although collective bargaining is legal, Mongolia's difficult economic situation often allows employers to unilaterally set wages and working conditions.

Petty corruption continued to be a problem, in part because government agencies operate with limited transparency. The country's first major corruption cases occurred in 1999, when a court sentenced three members of parliament from the then-ruling coalition to jail terms of up to five years for taking bribes related to a gambling license. Authorities have not identified any suspects in the 1998 murder of Sanjaasuren Zorig, the leader of the pro-democracy movement that ended single-party rule.