Bat-Orgil, Altankhuyag

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The Price of Limiting PowerBat-Orgil Altankhuyag 2021-05-07T15:17:06On 18 April 2021, Mongolia’s political landscape was hit by an unexpected event:President Battulga Khaltmaa issued an official decree in which he suggested todissolve Mongolia’s 100-year-old ruling party, the Mongolian People’s Party (MPP).What appears to be a political problem at first glance, points to a deeper crisis ofMongolia’s constitutional democracy. Not only the scope of Presidential powers, butalso the so called National Security Council (NSC) and Constitutional Court are inurgent need of reform. I argue that this deeper crisis consists of institutional conflictsbetween the President (who has been elected from the main opposition party) on theone side, and the ruling party and prime minister on the other side.Back to Political VolatilityUntil 1990, Mongolia had been a communist one-party regime under the MPPfor 70 years. It was only in 1990 that the transition to democracy came alongwith a transition to a multi-party system with free and fair elections. Since then,Mongolia has been led by 17 different governments, making it one of the mostpolitically volatile countries in the region. Despite this tumultuous history, the countrymanaged to successfully organize parliamentary elections last June, in the midstof the COVID-19 pandemic. The result was a landslide victory for the ruling MPPwhich retained its super-majority in the country’s unicameral parliament. The MPPchairman and incumbent Prime Minister, Khurelsukh Ukhnaa, was re-elected fora second term. It seemed like Mongolia might experience a rare period of politicalstability.However, just six months into his term, Khurelsukh unexpectedly stepped down asPrime Minister along with his entire Cabinet, ostensibly in response to a small, one-day demonstration that took place in the central square of the capital, Ulaanbaatar,in January 2021. Many of the protesters, who were outraged by the mistreatment ofa pregnant COVID-19 patient during her hospitalization, were reportedly surprised tosee their humble gathering elicit such an impact. In reality, many Mongolians suspectthat Khurelsukh resigned with an eye to prepare a bid for the upcoming presidentialelection in June 2021.After Khurelsukh’s resignation, he announced to stay on as chair of the MPP,which agreed to appoint his right-hand man, Oyun-Erdene Luvsannamsrai, as thereplacement Prime Minister.- 1 -From the “bad seven changes” to the 2019Constitutional AmendmentComplicating the matters further, in 2019, the Mongolian Parliament approvedsignificant changes to the constitution, including limiting presidencies to a singleterm. This is only the second time that the Mongolian government made anamendment to the constitution since its adoption in 1992. The first amendmentstook place in 2000, which some politicians call the “bad seven changes”. Due to thecommitment from the ruling party, especially from one of its leaders, ZandanshatarGombojav, the second amendment was approved by Parliament. Zandanshataris currently serving as a speaker of the Parliament. Previously, he was a visitingscholar at Stanford University, where he met Professor James Fishkin. Mongoliabecame one of the few countries that used the deliberative democracy approach byProfessor Fishkin to amend its constitution. Many Mongolian scholars argued thatit was a flawed method to amend the constitution, especially since the deliberativeprocess was subject to manipulation. Through the method of deliberative polling, thegovernment tried to survey citizens’ views on possible constitutional amendments.Though this process claimed to work with representative sampling methods, this iswhere manipulation was possible. For instance, some citizens were provided withunbalanced information and asked biased questions.The main goal of the recent second constitutional amendment was to move froma semi-presidential system to a parliamentary system. The power of the popularly-elected president was restricted and more power given to the prime minister,especially with regard to choosing cabinet members. Many scholars expectedconflicts among these two institutions after the amendment. This expectationconcerned, for example, the newly-introduced term limit for presidents. Whilepreviously the constitution prescribed a two-term limit with four years per term, theamendment limited a presidential term to a single term of six years. Initially, thisclause was planned to be implemented after 2025. However, this date has sincebeen dropped. The result is an ongoing debate among politicians and legal scholarswhether the new term limit should already apply to the current President. After longdiscussions, some members of an opposition party petitioned the ConstitutionalCourt to get a decision on this issue. After various rumors and suspicious events,such as canceling meetings of the small chamber and changing one justice ofthe court by the Parliament, the Constitutional Court ruled that current and formerpresidents cannot run for presidential elections again.The President’s InterventionFor the incumbent President Battulga Khaltmaa, this decision was shocking news.After few days of silence, Battulga Khaltmaa came up with the idea to dissolve theruling party. He issued an official decree on 18 April 2021 and handed it over tothe Supreme Court for a final decision. The official reasoning behind this decree isbased on two accusations by the President: Firstly, the President accused the headof the MPP (Khurelsukh) to be involved in the Mongolian Joint Military Union, anNGO that helps mostly retired military veterans. According to the President, political- 2 -parties should not be involved in military organizations or activities. Ironically, thePresident himself sent the NGO official congratulating remarks, when they launchedin 2019. For the last 30 years, the Mongolian military organizations and officershave been held at arm’s length from politics. Secondly, and more importantly, thePresident accused the MPP of having influenced the Constitutional Court’s decision.At the time of writing, the Supreme Court stated that a meeting cannot be organizeddue to the COVID-19 pandemic. Nevertheless, there has been a strong debateamong the Mongolian people whether the President’s decree is constitutional or not.However, the amendment of the Mongolian constitution is not the only constitutionalissue causing political trouble. One of the main sources of the current crisis isrelated to the National Security Council (NSC). This is a unique organization whichwas established by the 1992 constitution. From the perspective of checks andbalances, the structure of the NSC is problematic. The NSC has three members.The President acts as the head of NSC, the other two members are the PrimeMinister and the Speaker of Parliament. Khurelsukh Ukhnaa (the former PrimeMinister) worked closely with President Battulga Khaltmaa for the last four years inthe NCS. Evidently, since 2017, President Battulga has been using this structure inorder to implement his political agenda with green light by the other two members.For example, the President successfully passed the law on payoff loans for allpensioners through a decree by the NSC. The NSC became very influential in thelast 4-5 years, due to the personal relationship between Battulga and Khurelsukh,which allowed them to – essentially – rule by decree. Scholars have been warningabout the NSC’s unconstitutional activities for the last few years. Now, after the NCChas become a source of political conflicts, the current prime minister and speaker ofthe parliament stopped attending the meetings of the NSC.The Way Ahead Ultimately, all these events and conflicts have culminated in the present politicalcrisis, but cannot be understood without recourse to the 1992 constitution. Most ofthese problems are related to the strong position of the President in the Mongolianpolitical system.Even though the Parliament made significant changes to the Constitution in 2019,there are still unclear and problematic issues. Firstly, the amendment did not changethe popularly elected presidency. Popular elections in Mongolia usually gave morelegitimacy to the President compared to the Prime Minister, resulting in the Presidentbecoming a gridlock in the parliamentarian system. Secondly, the court that shouldmake a final judgment on the constitution is heavily influenced by politicians (whichI have explained here in detail). Thirdly, the structure of the NSC will not change.Since Khurelsukh Ukhnaa has the biggest chance to win the presidential election,NSC will be an even more problematic and influential political actor in the nearfuture. Even though there is consensus among politicians that the last amendmentwas a positive change for our democracy, I argue that the last amendment has notgone far enough. If political instability will continue at this scale, Mongolia’s politicalcrisis might put the very institution of constitutional democracy in danger.- 3 -- 4 -

The Price of Limiting Power

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The Price of Limiting Power

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