State of Emergency in Mongolia

Mongolians are up in arms about the results of Sunday's parliamentary elections, claiming that the ruling Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (which also ruled in the Soviet era) employed fraud to top opposition democratic movements. The subsequent clashes with police and attack on the ruling party's headquarters prompted President Nambaryn Enkhbayar to declare a four-day state of emergency and night curfew in Ulan Bator.

More from the Associated Press:

"The crowd thinned slightly after the emergency declaration in the early hours of Wednesday, though some protesters had begun looting paintings from an art gallery and televisions from government offices. Others vandalized cars parked on downtown streets.

Enkhbayar, a member of the governing party, acknowledged the protesters' complaints about the election but appealed for calm.

'Let's sit down and solve the election fraud,' he said on national television.

...Fraud accusations originally centered on two districts in Ulan Bator that were awarded to the governing party but were contested by two popular members of the Civic Movement party. Following that, protesters called the entire election into question, with opposition Democrats saying that their party, not the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party, or MPRP, had won the election.

Some protesters pushed into the General Election Commission offices to demand that officials resign because of alleged voting irregularities and fraud. The commission defended the vote, but at least one party called for a recount in some districts of Ulan Bator."

The vote was largely focused on the recent discoveries of big gold, copper, and coal deposits in the impoverished nation. The Mongolian Democratic Party believes that private Mongolian companies should hold a majority stake in the development of the mineral deposits.