At 10:34 05/07/00 -0400, you wrote:
>Communists reclaim power in Mongolia vote
>Landslide victory could limit freedoms, analysts say
>
>By Jeremy Page, Reuters, 7/4/2000
>
>
>ULAN BATOR, Mongolia - Mongolia's former communist rulers have been swept
>back to power in a landslide election victory, state media said yesterday,
>crushing the forces that helped usher in democracy a decade ago.
>
>
>State radio said the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, or MPRP, had
>won 72 of 76 seats up for grabs in Sunday's election to Parliament, or Great
>Hural.
That is a fine victory in a country that will be seen in the west as quite
peripheral to the global capitalist economy. Presumably the population also
feel secure that Russia and China, may provide some insulation against its
worst effects.
The report is written in such a fashion as to imply it may be the end of
"democracy" once again. But that bias should be questioned. Presumably the
MPRP should be able to win future elections even in a more diversified
economy, without having to restrict basic democratic rights. Who owns the
media, might be a crucial question.
Chris Burford
London
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