In Mongolia, young leaders seek to usher in new dawn of democracy

Young Mongolian parliament member challenges socialist past, advocating for democracy, small government, and freedom in the face of corruption.

Tsenguun Saruulsaikhan, a young and newly minted member of Mongolia’s parliament, is unhappy with below-cost electricity rates that she says show her country has yet to fully shake off its socialist past.

Most of Mongolia’s power plants date from the Soviet era and outages are common in some areas. Heavy smog envelops the capital Ulaanbaatar in the winter because many people still burn coal to heat their homes.

“It’s stuck in how it was like 40, 50 years ago,” said Ms. Tsenguun, part of a rising generation of leaders who are puzzling out their country’s future after three decades of democracy. “And that’s the reason why we need to change it.”

Democracy in Mongolia is in a transition phase, said Ms. Tsenguun.

Mongolia became a democracy in the early 1990s after six decades of one-party communist rule. Many Mongolians welcomed the end of repression and resulting freedoms but have since soured on the parliament and established political parties. Lawmakers are widely seen as enriching themselves and their big business supporters from the nation’s mineral wealth rather than using it to develop a country where poverty is widespread.

Voters delivered an election setback to the ruling Mongolian People’s Party last week, leaving it still in charge but with a slim majority of 68 out of the 126 seats in parliament.

Ms. Tsenguun was one of 42 winning candidates from the main Opposition Democratic Party, which made a major comeback after being reduced to a handful of seats in the 2016 and 2020 elections.