[In Mongolia, a law requiring political parties to report on their finances is simply ignored. And once businesses fund politicians, they expect something in return: Tenders for government contracts and licenses to mine are often sold for bribes or given away to those who have already paid, experts say.]
By Simon Denyer
 |
|
While
30 percent of Mongolians live below the poverty line, in parts of the capital,
businesses
thrive, reshaping the city with new buildings.
(Giulia
Marchi/For The Washington Post)
|
ULAANBAATAR
— Every post had its price.
About $400,000 to become a cabinet minister, $120,000 to be the director of a
government agency, $4,000 for a senior specialist’s role within the
bureaucracy. More than 8,000 jobs in Mongolia’s government and state-owned
enterprises were being offered by the Mongolian People’s Party (MPP) if it won parliamentary elections, in return for
the money the party needed to run its campaign.
From the capital, Ulaanbaatar, alone, party
officials planned to raise 60 billion tugriks ($25 million) in campaign
financing from business elites and foreign investors, according to audio
recordings released by whistleblower Ganbold Dorjzodov between 2016 and 2017.
What Mongolians call the “60 billion case”
was one of the biggest political scandals to hit the country since it became a
democracy in 1990, and it exposed the fundamental weakness at the heart of that
democracy — arguably the fundamental weakness at the heart of many democracies
around the world.
“Mongolians have realized that the source of
corruption is campaign finance,” said a leading independent economist,
Jargalsaikhan Dambadarjaa, who runs the influential Jargal Defacto website.
“Those who give money through these political parties control all of Mongolia,
control all the government.”
With business controlling politics, voters
feel alienated. There is a disillusionment with democracy that is familiar
across the globe and that lies behind the rise of populist demagogues from Asia
to the Americas.
Inspired by events in the Soviet Union and
Eastern Europe, thousands of young Mongolians demonstrated in 1989 and 1990
against the country’s authoritarian communist government, winning a peaceful
transition to democracy that was initially greeted with tremendous enthusiasm
and hope.
In 1993, turnout in the country’s first free
presidential election was nearly 93 percent. In 2017, that figure slipped to
just over 68 percent, with nearly 19,000 people out of 1.4 million voters casting blank ballots to protest the quality
of candidates on offer.
The winning candidate, Khaltmaa Battulga, was
a business tycoon and former wrestler who cast himself as an outsider — a
populist, anti-establishment figure. The man he defeated, Miyegombo Enkhbold of
the MPP, was one of the politicians allegedly caught on the famous audio
recordings.
In India, severe restrictions on how
political parties can raise money have driven campaign finance underground and
fostered a culture of corruption and kickbacks, experts say. In the United
States, the system is more transparent, but studies show that the need to raise
money to finance election campaigns means business elites have vastly more
influence over policy than average citizens.
In Mongolia, a law requiring political
parties to report on their finances is simply ignored. And once businesses fund
politicians, they expect something in return: Tenders for government contracts
and licenses to mine are often sold for bribes or given away to those who have
already paid, experts say.
It is no coincidence that the proceeds from
Mongolia’s vast reserves of coal, copper and gold flow disproportionately to
the elite, while nearly 30 percent of the country lives below the poverty line.
Luvsandendev Sumati, director of the
independent Sant Maral polling organization, says Mongolians still demonstrate
strong support for democratic ideals, such as that everyone should be equally
treated by the law and have the right to express their opinions freely.
But they are less impressed with the
performance of their elected representatives.
Nearly 34 percent of respondents in Sant
Maral’s latest poll said they believed that government policies mainly
supported the rich, while a further 42 percent said policy was driven by
“self-interested politicians” who lacked concern for society at large.
More than 6 in 10 said voters had little or
no influence on political decision-making, and 87 percent said political
parties did not represent public opinion.
Cynicism also breeds short-termism. Voters
kick out incumbents at almost every opportunity, and many politicians make the
most of their limited time in power to fill their pockets and those of their
supporters. Bureaucrats are replaced whenever power changes hands, so cronies
rather than impartial experts fill many of the top jobs.
And money corrupts in other ways, too: Nearly
three-quarters of the most popular media outlets were either founded or are now
owned by current or former high-ranking state officers, according to a survey
by Reporters Without Borders and the Press Institute of Mongolia.
In turn, instability and corruption have left
many Mongolians yearning for a strong leader to look after their interests.
While 2 in 3 people said a democratic system was good or rather good in Sant
Maral’s March poll, more than 3 out of 4 expressed approval for a “strong
leader who does not have to bother with the parliament and elections.”
The current president, Battulga, wants to see
the law changed so that no one involved in the mining business, which dominates
Mongolia’s economy, is allowed to get into politics. His immediate predecessor
wanted to introduce a law demanding more transparency in party finances.
But parliament is where the power lies in
Mongolian politics, and it isn’t interested in passing laws that would threaten
the two main parties’ cozy hold on power, experts say.
True, Mongolia’s anti-graft agency arrested
two former prime ministers and a former finance minister in April over
accusations of kickbacks during negotiations over a major copper mine. But the
suspicion remains that corruption charges tend to be brought only after
politicians lose power, not before.
Dorjzodov, the whistleblower, was working as
chief strategy officer for an MPP-supporting businessman when he recorded audio
of the campaign finance meeting on his iPad.
The National Institute of Forensic Science
examined the recording and initially declared that it was genuine, but after
the MPP won 2016 parliamentary elections it changed its mind and decided it was
“fabricated,” Dorjzodov says.
MPP politicians in turn insisted that the
audio had been “spliced together,” but independent expert analysis conducted in
the United States concluded that it had not been tampered with.
For the past two years, Dorjzodov has been
threatened by politicians, harassed by police, interrogated and detained by
intelligence agents, and denounced in the media. Even today, he can’t find
work.
“I felt the public should know what was being
talked about behind the scenes,” he said in an interview in a private location.
“My goal was to open voters’ eyes to what politicians are really like.”
So, if he could relive the past, would he do
it all over again?
“Of course,” he replied, without a flicker of
doubt. “I am still optimistic. I hope my action will bring other people out.”
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