China's experts on Mongolian affairs struggled to explain what happened in Ulan Bator after Sunday's election which led to riots and a military lock-down of the capital yesterday.
'The Mongolian people had been talking about corruption in the government for years, but there were no imminent signs before the election to suggest extensive public fury over this,' said Nalin, a professor of Mongolian studies at Inner Mongolia University.
The success of the ruling Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (MPRP) was decried by the opposition Democratic Party and a coalition of other smaller parties as being 'tainted by corruption'.
'The ferocity of the protests was unexpected,' the professor said. 'The Democrats have always fought hard in every election battle, president or parliament, even though they had only a slim chance to begin with. But this is the first time things have turned violent.'
The rain on Sunday had hindered people from voting at the spread out voting stations but that had nothing to do with corruption, she said.
Some observers suggested that the biggest difference in the campaign focus of the two parties was that the MPRP supported the government retaining a major interest in the country's mineral resources, while the Democrats called for giving a bigger stake to the private sector, and hence foreign interests.
