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ASIA FOCUS
Face-off in Mongolia is spurred partly by differing views on how best to tap mineral assets. By Post Reporters
As nationalistic feelings take hold in Mongolia and protests against the government start to intensify, the president has declared a four-day state of emergency in Ulan Bator that will last until the weekend.
The move comes amid claims by the protesters that the recently held elections were rigged by the ruling party, which has made the nationalisation of various resource assets its priority.
President Nambaryn Enkhbayar issued a decree allowing the police to use force in dealing with thousands of rock-throwing protesters who thronged the headquarters of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party and set it on fire.
Mr Enkhbayar, a ruling party member, acknowledged the protesters' complaints over results of the election - centred on how to share the country's mineral wealth - but appealed for calm.
"Let's sit down and solve the election fraud," he said on national TV.
Mongolia, a poor nation sandwiched between China and Russia, is struggling to modernise its nomadic, agriculture-based economy. According to the government, the per capita income is just $1,500 a year in the country of about three million people in a land mass three times the size of Thailand.
The two main parties focused their campaigns on how to tap recently discovered mineral deposits - including copper, gold and coal - but disagreed over whether the government or private sector should hold a majority stake.
The difference meant the outgoing parliament was unable to pass an amendment to the Minerals Law, which kept the government from concluding investment agreements with international mining giants to develop mineral deposits in the Gobi Desert.
The existing law gives the government the right to take up to a 50% interest in an important mineral deposit if state funds were used to discover it.
The proposed change would give Mongolia a minimum 51% stake. But while the ruling party wants the government to hold that stake, the Mongolian Democratic Party says private Mongolian companies should be able to hold it.
The clashes far surpass the usual minor violence that has often accompanied elections in the 18 years since Mongolia cast off communist rule for democracy.
Complaints of election fraud originally centred on two districts in Ulan Bator that were awarded to the ruling party, but contested by two popular members of the Civic Movement party. Protesters then called the entire election into question, with opposition Democrats saying that they, not the MPRP, won the poll.
According to preliminary results, the MPRP - which also governed the country when it was a Soviet satellite - won 46 seats in Sunday's vote. That would give it far more than half of the 76 seats in parliament.
The election commission has until Thursday to announce the final results.
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