The Mongolian People's Revolu-tionary Party (MPRP), recovering from a glitzy overnight rally starring rap singers and dancers, yesterday expressed high hopes it would be re-elected tomorrow after providing four years of stability.
The MPRP has 72 seats in the 76-seat "Great Hural," or parliament, and is widely expected to be returned to power in one of the world's poorest and most sparsely populated countries, probably losing just a handful of seats to a divided opposition.
"Of course we will win," said MPRP political official Enkhtoer on Friday. "I am confident we will get the vast majority of seats."
PHOTO: REUTERS
At the campaign rally on Thursday featuring fireworks, balloons and a military band, Prime Minister Nambaryn Enkhbayar, campaigning on a platform of creating jobs, boosting growth and eliminating poverty in the land of nomadic herders, said the MPRP would solve the country's ills.
"Nothing is missing in our election program," he told thousands of party faithful. "The MPRP can solve all problems in our society today."
The opposition Motherland Democratic Coalition, without the funds of the MPRP, has run a deliberately low-key campaign and decried the government for wasting money on rallies, banners and television campaigning.
"We really cannot predict what the result will be," said coalition election campaign official Gantulga. "We'll get some seats but it is difficult at this point to say how many."
Analysts say the opposition will win some votes in protest against the perceived arrogance of the MPRP but that the coalition has no clear policy.
Ulan Bator has not exactly been grabbed by election fever but the MPRP, which ruled for 75 years until 1996 -- most of that time as a one-party Soviet satellite -- has erected billboards and posters around the city targeting youth.
Its banners show young, smiling families and promise the creation of 145,000 new jobs.
The party, which sent 180 troops to Iraq as part of the US-led coalition force, is also campaigning for "increased global security."
"I am afraid that the MPRP will get the majority again and then our freedoms will be restricted for another four years," said Naraa on the streets of the capital.
The MPRP returned to power in 2000 on a wave of popular anger against the bitterly divided Democratic Union coalition government and economic austerity measures imposed by the International Monetary Fund.
Since then, opposition politicians have accused the MPRP of using its overwhelming majority in the Great Hural to curb media freedoms and soft-pedal on economic reforms, charges the government has denied.
Enkhbayar, whose biggest achievement was the cancellation of 98 percent of Mongolia's Soviet-era debt, conceded last week that four years of MPRP rule had not succeeded in eliminating poverty.
But he said the country, half the size of Western Europe but with a population of only a third of Hong Kong, had endured three devastating winters, three years of drought and three years of falling cashmere, copper and gold prices -- its staple products.
Zavkhlant, a businessman sitting in an open-air restaurant in the capital, said the opposition could win as many as 26 seats in parliament if voters hold their nerve.
"There are prospects for more seats if people's sentiment stays the same for the next few days," he said.
About half Mongolia's 2.7 million population are Nomads, with tens of millions of cattle, sheep, horses and camels grazing the vast meadows that cover four-fifths of the country, once the center of one of the world's greatest empires.
The results of tomorrow's election are expected early on Monday.
ACTIONABLE ADVICE: The majority of chatbots tested provided guidance on weapons, tactics and target selections, with Perplexity and Meta AI deemed to be the least safe From school shootings to synagogue bombings, leading artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks, according to a study published on Wednesday that highlighted the technology’s potential for real-world harm. Researchers from the nonprofit watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate and CNN posed as 13-year-old boys in the US and Ireland to test 10 chatbots, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, Deepseek and Meta AI. Eight of the chatbots assisted the make-believe attackers in more than half the responses, providing advice on “locations to target” and “weapons to use” in an attack, the study said. The chatbots had become a “powerful accelerant for
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
RSS