Mongolians saddle up to vote for new President

ULAN BATOR - Mongolians set out on horses, camels, four-wheel drives and on foot on Sunday to vote for the country's next president after election stations opened across the windswept nation.

Around 1 million of the 2.5 million people in the Central Asian country about three times the size of France are eligible to vote before polls close at 10pm. (1am Mon NZT).

Volunteers in jeeps took ballot boxes deep into the rural grasslands so elderly people and others among Mongolia's large nomadic population could vote from their round white "ger" tents, but voter turnout was expected to be low because of scepticism and indifference toward the electoral process.

"I regret that a lot of young people don't go to the polls, because they would be supporters of the Democrats," Khuderbaatar, a park ranger in his 50s, said from his ger as several calves grazed outside.

Opinion polling last week gave a clear lead to Nambariin Enkhbayar, prime minister from 2000 to 2004 and head of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, followed by Mendsaikhanii Enkhsaikhan, also a former premier, of the Democratic Party.

Bazarsadiin Jargalsaikhan of the Republican Party and Badarchiin Erdenebat from the Motherland New Socialist Democratic Party were polling lower, but within striking distance.

"I voted for Enkhbayar because I think he is a just and fair person and very experienced," Uranhaich, a 36-year-old woman in a turquoise traditional dress, said after voting at a village school near Ulan Bator. "And I hope he will first of all create jobs for young people." Mongolia's economy grew 10.9 percent in 2004, up from 5.5 percent the previous year, as the country rebounded from droughts and famine in 2000 and 2001 and attracted mining investment from the likes of Canadian firm Ivanhoe Mines Ltd.

But nearly a third of its people live below the poverty line.

The president of the land of Genghis Khan does not have as much direct power as its prime minister, currently Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj of the Democrats, but does command the armed forces and have influence in the divided parliament.

The election result could be announced on Monday if one of the four candidates gets more than 50 percent of the vote; otherwise, the two top vote-getters will compete in a run-off.

Genghis Khan, born around 1167, unified disparate Mongolian tribes to create a lethal, fighting force that rode roughshod over China and Central Asia and forged a short-lived empire that reached as far west as Poland and Hungary.

- REUTERS