What Mongolia's New Prime Minister Means for Its Democracy

Time​ Magazine

2 days ago

It's either a triumph for people power or a worrying lurch towards authoritarianism, depending on whom you ask, but Mongolia has a new Prime Minister: Zandanshatar Gombojav, a Russian-educated former banker who previously served as Foreign Minister, Chief of the Cabinet Secretariat, and speaker of the State Great Khural parliament.
'I will work forward, not backward,' Zandanshatar told the State Great Khural, whose lawmakers overwhelmingly approved his elevation to the premiership by 108 out of the 117 members present. 'By respecting unity, we will overcome this difficult economic situation.'
They're economic woes that contributed to the downfall of outgoing Prime Minister Luvsannamsrain Oyun-Erdene, who belongs to the same Mongolian People's Party (MPP) but quit after failing to receive sufficient backing in a June 3 confidence vote he called to quell popular protests demanding his ouster.
For several weeks, thousands of predominantly young demonstrators have thronged central Ulaanbaatar's Sukhbaatar Square in outrage at the lavish displays of wealth that Oyun-Erdene's son and fiancée posted on social media, including helicopter rides, an expensive engagement ring, a luxury car, and designer handbags.
The crowds called for Oyun-Erdene to disclose his personal finances, but he declined saying that they had already been provided to the nation's Anti-Corruption Agency, as required by law. However, public trust in that body and the wider judiciary is scant following a slew of high-profile graft scandals coupled with a conspicuous lack of prosecutions or accountability.
'Oyun-Erdene was the one who was talking about morals, transparency, and corruption,' protest leader Unumunkh Jargalsaikhan, 27, tells TIME. 'But Mongolia is actually degrading when it comes to the economy and freedoms. The corruption scandal was just the spark.'
Unumunkh blames rising living costs and torpid wages for driving public anger, especially among young people. Mongolia is facing an economic crunch with government spending rising 20% year-on-year for the first four months of 2025 but goods exports falling by 13% over the same period, owed not least to a 39% decline in coal exports. Still, Oyun-Erdene was dismissive of the protesters and in a statement instead blamed 'a web of interests, tangled like a spider's web' for toppling him.
Oyun-Erdene's supporters say his ouster had three drivers: Firstly, and with a dash of irony, his relentless pursuit of official graft, including a draft law his cabinet just submitted that would compel all public officials to justify their income.
Secondly, last year's updated Minerals Law, which puts 34% of the equity of 'strategic' mines—defined as producing over 5% of GDP—into a Sovereign Wealth Fund. Today, nine of Mongolia's 16 strategic deposits are privately owned by influential industrialist families. 'Those private companies are very unhappy and completely opposed to 34% belonging to the state,' says Jargalsaikhan Dambadarjaa, a Mongolian broadcaster and political commentator.
The third alleged driver is more contentious: that Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh deviously undermined Oyun-Erdene in order to change the constitution to boost presidential powers and extend term limits from the single, six-year stint currently permitted.
True, incoming Prime Minister Zandanshatar's most recent posting was as chief-of-staff to Khurelsukh, who chose to give a midnight speech to the State Great Khural on the eve of Oyun-Erdene's no-confidence vote that urged lawmakers to represent their constituents rather than a single political leader. Despite the MPP having enough lawmakers to reach the 64-vote threshold required to save Oyun-Erdene, his own party deserted him, with the secret ballot totaling just 44 votes for, 38 against.
Oyun-Erdene's camp paints Khurelsukh as an aspiring autocrat intent on aligning Mongolia with authoritarian neighbors China and Russia, noting how he hosted Vladimir Putin in Ulaanbaatar in September, flouting an International Criminal Court arrest warrant, and also attended Moscow's Victory Day Parade in May. A doctored photo depicting Khurelsukh as having commissioned a giant golden statue of himself in the manner resembling a Central Asian despot is doing the rounds on social media.
However, this narrative has some problems. Gladhanding Putin is a political necessity for landlocked Mongolia, whose 3.5 million population relies on Moscow for 90% of imported gas and petroleum and is completely beholden to Russia for security. 'Turning up in September was Putin showing the rest of the world his middle finger,' says Prof. Julian Dierkes, a Mongolia expert at the University of Mannheim in Germany. 'There was no option for Mongolia to say no.'
Moreover, Khurelsukh has proven an internationalist, first addressing the U.N. General Assembly soon after his inauguration in 2021 and returning every year since. (His predecessor, Khaltmaagiin Battulga, rarely showed up.) While not outright condemning Russia's aggression in Ukraine, Khurelsukh's latest UNGA address in September did pointedly voice opposition to 'using force against the territorial integrity and political independence of any state.'
Khurelsukh has also repeatedly gone on record to oppose amending the constitution, which was just updated in 2019 to strengthen the legislative branch. 'Honestly, there isn't a lot of worry about the President trying to stay in power,' says Bolor Lkhaajav, a Mongolian political analyst and commentator. Dierkes agrees: 'I call baloney on the 'evil President thesis.''
It's also a thesis that completely ignores the concerns of the Sukhbaatar Square protesters while presuming that things in Mongolia were otherwise rosy and improving under Oyun-Erdene. However, Mongolia's score on the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index had fallen from 35 out of 100 when he came to power in 2021 to just 33 last year. Meanwhile, human-rights groups have condemned the prosecution of peaceful protesters and prominent journalists under his watch. Mongolia's press freedom ranking dropped to 109 out of 180 countries last year, down from 88 in 2023, according to Reporters Without Borders.
'On corruption, he's taken rhetorical actions,' Dierkes says of Oyun-Erdene. 'And on democracy promotion, he's taken negative actions. He is no democracy warrior.'
Moreover, while Zandanshatar is clearly close to the President, he is by no means a lacky, being a highly educated career politician—a former visiting scholar at Stanford—with his own power base. Still, what Zandanshatar's rise to the premiership means for Mongolia going forward is a big question.
A married father-of-four, Zandanshatar, 55, developed a reputation as a thoughtful, steady speaker of parliament. Following his posting at Stanford, he returned enthused about deliberative polling, which was subsequently employed to gauge public opinion prior to the 2019 constitutional amendment. Zandanshatar does, however, have a democratic deficit given he's one of the few senior MPP figures not to have won a seat in the 2024 election, though he had been elected three times previously.
Although choosing a non-lawmaker as Prime Minister is not unprecedented, Dierkes fears this may serve as a 'legitimacy achilles heel' should the winds turn against him. Jargalsaikhan also notes Zandanshatar was one of the proponents of Mongolia's 2006 'windfall tax' on copper and gold mining profits. (The 68% levy—the world's highest—was repealed in 2009 after decimating investor confidence.)
Oyun-Erdene had earmarked 14 new mega projects to boost economic growth, including a major expansion of renewable energy and cross-border railway connections with China, which receives 90% of Mongolian exports. He also promised to diversify the country's economy, which is heavily dependent on a mining industry that accounts for a quarter of GDP. But policy continuity is key to attracting the foreign investment necessary to realize these goals.
'Until investment laws are consistent here, investors are going to be wary,' says Steve Potter, an honorary member and former chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in Ulaanbaatar. 'Constant changes in rules and regulations have long been a problem. Consequently, foreign investment has been very lackluster.'
Investor uncertainty isn't the only worry. Having lasted in power four-and-a-half years, Oyun-Erdene was the longest-serving of Mongolia's 18 Prime Ministers since its 1990 democratic revolution. The revolving door of governments and leaders has augmented the idea that parliamentarian democracy is flawed or inherently unsuited to Mongolian society, while rendering a centralized political system more appealing for some—an idea that is being amplified by shadowy actors on social media and galvanized by Oyun-Erdene's tone deaf response to protesters' demands.
'The protests were organic, but instead of showing his financial papers the Prime Minister's response was so political,' says Bolor. 'His reaction showed just how disconnected he was from the people, who only care about how his policies are impacting their daily lives, such as air pollution, unemployment, and corruption.'
So while Oyun-Erdene's demise was likely rooted in factional bickering rather than a nefarious power grab, the debacle contains a stark warning that Mongolia's political class needs to start pulling in the same direction for cherished freedoms to be secured. 'Democracy itself is very fragile,' says Jargalsaikhan. 'But it's so important and can only be protected by a thriving parliamentarian system. And we must not lose democracy in Mongolia.'