New president vows to fight poverty

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By Stephanie Hoo

ULAN BATOR, Mongolia – A British-educated literature scholar from Mongolia’s formerly Communist ruling party has been elected president, and he promised Monday to work with his bitter rivals and fight widespread poverty in this one-time Soviet satellite.

Nambariin Enkhbayar of the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party said his first priority would be creating jobs.

“This may be the only way to fight poverty and bring development to this country,” he said.

The Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party ruled the country with an iron fist before multiparty democracy was introduced in 1990. It has since been voted out and back into power, and many Mongolians who voted for the party Sunday said they were nostalgic for communist rule when Soviet aid kept the economy afloat.

Today’s Mongolia can’t look to Russia for help, but it can lower taxes on small businesses, increase job training, improve the banking system so entrepreneurs can get loans, and ease regulations on foreign firms, the 46-year-old Enkhbayar said.

In a country where more than a third of people can’t afford enough food to eat, Enkhbayar’s three opponents accused the Mongolian People’s Revolutionary Party-dominated government of allowing foreign mining firms to keep too much of the profits they earn from their interests in Mongolia.