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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 ULAANBAATAR 000355 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR EAP/CM, DRL, INR/EAP AND INR/B 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL ECON PHUM KCOR PGOV KMCA SOCI MG
SUBJECT: Candidate Profile: On the Campaign Trail--The Mongol Way 
 
Ref: A) Ulaanbaatar 0345,  B) Ulaanbaatar 0198 
 
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED - NOT FOR INTERNET DISTRIBUTION 
 
¶1. (SBU) SUMMARY AND COMMENT: Advisor to the Minister of Industry 
and Trade, S.Otgonbat (strictly protect) shared his experience as a 
campaign manager for J. Enkbayar, an upstart Mongolian People's 
Revolutionary Party (MPRP) businessman in his 30's and a candidate 
in Mongolia's remote southwestern Gobi Altai province. Broken by 
14,000 foot peaks and searing deserts, the province's poor 
infrastructure and rough terrain presented the campaign with major 
logistical challenges. The candidate funded his own campaign but 
made extensive use of the provincial MPRP apparatus to circumvent 
legal spending limits and to reach the widely dispersed voters, 
according to Otgonbat.  The successful campaign combined both 
traditional appeals to Mongolian cultural heritage with a savage, 
unprecedented attack by the candidate against his party's provincial 
leadership for incompetence and corruption.  The candidate also 
departed from tradition by directly appealing to the disabled and 
the lower class market, bazaar vendors to vote for him. Otgonbat 
claimed his candidates won 68% of the vote, the highest rate in all 
of Mongolia, due to his willingness to reach out to disaffected 
voters.  Contemplated in retrospect, post sees little evidence of 
election fraud in this Gobi Altai campaign.  Yes, the candidate, 
according to Otgonbat, did circumvent spending limits through the 
eye-brow raising-but legal-fiction of donating to the local party, 
which then covered his costs.  However the campaign shows that 
election victory in Mongolia can be achieved in the time-honored way 
of most democracies:  Those with money, party machines, and a 
campaign focused on local values and needs will usually win.  END 
SUMMARY AND COMMENT. 
 
LUNCH WITH THE CAMPAIGN MANAGER 
------------------------------- 
 
¶2. (SBU) On July 16, post's Commercial Officer (and Acting Econ/Coml 
Chief) lunched with S. Otgonbat (strictly protect), who discussed 
his role as campaign manager for Mongolian Revolutionary Party 
(MPRP) candidate J. Enkhbayar's successful campaign for one of two 
seats available in the Gobi-Altai election (ref A reported election 
results).  Advisor to Minister of Industry and Trade Narankhuu 
Otgonbat (or "Oggie") is no stranger to elections.  He ran his own 
successful campaign for UB city council in 2004 and has served as 
deputy manager for now President Enkhbayar, when he successfully ran 
for Parliament in 2004 
 
GOVI ALTAI: DISTANT, LARGE, AND SPARSELY POPULATED 
--------------------------------------------- ----- 
 
¶3. (SBU) Perhaps Mongolia's most remote province, Gobi-Altai's 
64,000 people are easily out numbered by its 1.5 million head of 
livestock.   The province's 34,313 eligible voters are widely 
dispersed among 20 soums (counties) covering some 100,000 square 
miles of soaring 14,000 foot peaks and searing desert basins. 
Although sitting on excellent coking and thermal coal deposits, 
gold, copper, and other metals, as well as producing some of the 
world's finest cashmere, the province remains desperately poor. 
Impossibly pot-holed, paved roads are largely limited to the 
provincial capital of Altai where continuous electrical power 
remains an intermittent dream at best. 
 
CANDIDATE BUILT LOCAL CONNECTIONS FOR THREE YEARS 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
 
¶4. (SBU) In his mid-thirties, J. Enkhbayar is a native son of 
Gobi-Altai, whose family moved to Ulaanbaatar some years ago, where 
he met Oggie.  Apparently, their families vacationed together and 
the two became fast friends and later business and political 
associates.  Based on these ties, and Oggie's practical experience 
with elections, Enkhbayar asked him to run his campaign. 
 
¶5. (SBU) Although he did not explain Enkhbayar's motives for 
running, Oggie offered that Enkhbayar had begun his campaign some 
three years ago. In 2005, Enkhbayar began to visit the province 
three to four times a year.  During these visits he promoted 
wrestling and horse racing events, having become a horse owner in 
 
ULAANBAATA 00000355  002 OF 004 
 
 
the province and sponsoring several local champion wrestlers.  In 
addition, he created an NGO that rebuilt local hospitals and that 
provided scholarships to local students for college educations in UB 
(121 students is the figure Oggie cited).  Oggie stated that the 
candidate has no other business interests in the province to date. 
 
NEW BLOOD CHALLENGES OLD; GETS PARTY NOD 
---------------------------------------- 
 
¶6. (SBU) When the MPRP was deciding this May among possible 
candidates to run for Gobi-Altai's two seats in parliament, 
Enkhbayar offered himself as a young and successful option to the 
current slate of Gobi-Altai candidates, noting that he had laid much 
of the ground work for his campaign over the last three years. 
However, the MPRP decided to run 4-term incumbent MP Ochirkhuu 
instead.  Enkhbayar, supported by Oggie and several other 
up-and-coming party stalwarts, argued that Ochirkhuu and many other 
MPRP warhorses needed to retire to make room for new blood; and if 
these ancient politicians and the party refused to make way, 
Enkhbayar, among others, would run as an independent, which might 
well draw off votes from the MPRP candidate, giving the win to the 
Democratic Party.  Faced with this scorched-earth candidacy, the 
MPRP relented, booted Ochirkhuu, and nominated Enkhbayar.  (Comment: 
 During the DCM's April visit to the region (ref B), both MPRP and 
opposition Democratic Party local leaders stressed the need for "new 
blood" to build for the future, lest their party be marginalized or 
left behind should the competition field new, locally appealing 
candidates.  Exasperated, the party leaders were resigned to the 
seeming reality that such decisions would not be made locally nor 
reflect the province's needs but by their party's leadership in 
Ulaanbaatar.  So Enkhbayar's successful fait accompli provides 
another approach for candidates to work around their party's 
entrenched bureaucracy and centralization. End Comment.) 
 
GOBI ALTAI: A VAST, TOUGH PLACE TO CAMPAIGN 
------------------------------------------- 
 
¶7. (SBU) Enkhbayar and Oggie found the prospect of campaigning in 
this vast mountain and desert province daunting. The provincial 
capital has only one local television station, the signal of which 
cannot reach outside the capital.  Most voters, herders, are out in 
the distant pastures for the summer and cannot be reached 
electronically; and so, the campaign had to travel to them.  In 
practice this meant going out to each the provinces counties and 
visiting the voters in their baghs (districts), the smallest 
administrative unit.  The campaign then had slightly more than two 
weeks to meet with voters scattered in some 168 districts.  Oggie 
explained that it took full 18-hour days to cover alpine tracks best 
left to hikers and horses, but the campaign need to traverse these 
horrid roads to meet with herders in scattered in the mountains. 
 
MPPR PARTY MACHINE WORTH EVERY PENNY! 
------------------------------------- 
 
¶8. (SBU) Enkhbayar paid for the campaign out his own pocket.  Oggie 
stated that Enkhbayar coughed up some Tugruk 125,000,000 (about 
US$108,000) to cover campaign expenses, which included ads for the 
local TV station, auto expenses, campaign literature, salaries for 
the 15 campaign staff, and expenses incurred to cover the costs of 
50 laborers hired by the local party apparatus for the 45 day 
campaign.  Most of Enkhbayar's funds were channeled into local MPRP 
party organizations, who then doled them out to county and district 
party apparatuses to cover Enkhbayar's campaign costs.  (Comment: 
Post believes that this MPRP candidate and others from both the 
Democratic and MPRP parties funded their respective campaigns by 
using local party apparatus as a funding shell to avoid statutory 
campaign spending limits of US$17,300 (Tugruk 20 million) imposed on 
the candidates by the election law. End comment.) 
 
¶9. (SBU) Oggie noted that the other MPRP candidate, Dashdorj, also 
employed a similar approach to funding his campaign.  In fact, 
together they provided at least 60% of all monies spent by the MPRP 
local on the campaign.  However, Oggie did not disparage the party 
for its lack of money, noting that what the party lacked in cash it 
more than made up with manpower for the cause: an experienced cadre 
of 600 party stalwarts populating every district and county.  Oggie 
 
ULAANBAATA 00000355  003 OF 004 
 
 
thought this party structure was and remains the MPRP's 
not-so-secret and largely but mistakenly discounted election weapon. 
 
 
¶10.  (SBU) CommOff asked Oggie if he took a leave of absence to 
campaign, and he explained that he was actually on assignment from 
the Ministry in the province.  He could be in the province if he 
were doing work for the Ministry of Industry and Trade, and 
apparently he was leading some delegations to conduct trade research 
in the province on the minister's behalf. Nor did he have to resign 
his position to support a campaign as a member of the civil service 
would, because he was a political appointee of his minister not a 
civil servant.  All bases covered, then. 
 
THE CAMPAIGN TRIAL: TRADITION COMBINED WITH INNOVATION 
--------------------------------------------- --------- 
 
¶11. (SBU) The specific campaign waged combined tradition and 
innovation.  Oggie said that the most important campaign element was 
Enkhbayar's presentation of himself as a patron of local sports, 
particularly wrestling and horse racing.  He stated categorically 
that no candidate could hope to win a countryside seat without 
owning and racing horses locally or without supporting wrestling. 
Having businesses and contributing in other ways to the welfare of 
the locality are certainly valued, but if a candidate really wanted 
to come across as son of the land, he had own and race horses or 
help with the wrestling.   He was then vested in the locality in way 
that resonated with traditional herder values. Oggie was not able to 
explain the mindset of the voter in this regard, but three years of 
buying, breeding, and racing horses; three years of underwriting 
sports events, had given Enkhbayar impeccable, unassailable 
countryside bona fides. 
 
CAREFULLY COUCHED CRITICISM TAPS 
INTO POPULAR FRUSTRATIONS 
------------------------------- 
 
¶12. (SBU) More pragmatically, Oggie claimed that Enkhbayar ran a 
campaign highly critical of the existing provincial government and 
one which reached out to non-traditional constituencies.  Because 
the campaign law bars candidates from direct criticism of their 
opponents or from promoting specific programs of their own design 
not mentioned in the party platform, Enkhbayar focused on general 
needs for development in the province, blaming the local 
administration, an MPRP administration of at least a decade's 
vintage-his own party, in short-for failing to develop one of 
Mongolia's most well-endowed provinces.  For at least the last 15 
years the central government had poured in at least US$100,000,000 
for Gobi-Altai roads, dams, buildings, government salaries and 
administrative overhead, etc; and the province had very little to 
show for this money. (Comment: Post cannot verify the validity or 
accuracy of these campaign attacks. One might wonder how annual 
spending of just US$7 million per for 15 years for province with so 
many human needs could have had much of an impact on the quality of 
life and infrastructure of the province.  Perhaps Enkhbayar's 
criticism is overheated and unfair, but perhaps such caviling is 
beside the point.  The point is that the candidate apparently got 
traction among voters, who seemed to agree with the point that the 
provincial administration had failed as stewards of the public's 
trust. End comment.) 
 
¶13. (SBU) Enkhbayar accused the existing central provincial 
administration of incompetence at best and corruption at worst. 
Better oversight from the center to insure that monies allocated for 
development of mining and infrastructure projects was called for, 
and movement on major mining projects, for example, Rio Tinto's 2 
billion ton coking coal project, had to be acted upon; and when 
acted upon jobs and better conditions would come to a province that 
could, should, and must be prosperous. 
 
CHALLENGING AND BREAKING TRADITIONS 
----------------------------------- 
 
¶14. (SBU) Commoff asked if the local MPRP administration was put off 
by this blame game.  Of course, they were, but what could they do 
about it.  Having lost old, reliable Ochirkhuu, the local bosses now 
 
ULAANBAATA 00000355  004 OF 004 
 
 
faced an insurgent Enkhbayar who owed them nothing. Although the 
local leadership gnashed its teeth at the criticism, apparently the 
lower echelons and county/district rank and file were not averse to 
seeing the fat cats criticized for failing to help them.  (Comment: 
This campaign approach is somewhat unprecedented in a country where 
criticizing one's elders and leaders is considered the height of bad 
form, if not a form of betrayal.  But it seems to have worked for 
Enkhbayar, who took 68% of the Gobi Altai vote where some 82% of all 
eligible voters cast their ballots, the highest percentage for any 
candidate in any district.) 
 
REACHING OUT TO THE DISENFRANCHISED - THE DISABLED... 
----------------------------------- 
 
¶15. (SBU) Enkhbayar also reached out to disenfranchised groups, whom 
most parties have traditionally ignored, specifically mentioning the 
disabled and the black market traders of Gobi-Altai.  Oggie noted 
that some 8,000 disabled people live in the province. How many voted 
was not clear, but their families did vote and some help was not 
amiss.  Although Enkhbayar had not done much with them in the three 
years preceding the election, Enkhbayar was quick to find jobs 
during the election for 50 disabled voters, who received a month's 
minimum wages of US$93.00 to help the central party with the 
campaign.  Enkhbayar covered these costs for the party.  Oggie 
ensured that this support was publicized and believes that it earned 
the candidate, who promised other support to the group, votes on 
election day. As far as Oggie knew, his candidate was among the few, 
perhaps the only MPRP candidate, to pay disabled voters for their 
services, putting some meat behind his promise to help this group. 
 
... AND UNRULY TRADERS 
-------------------- 
 
 
¶16. (SBU) Oggie was particularly proud of his getting Enkhbayar to 
campaign among traders.  These business people populate the local 
bazaar and their activities employ the balance of the people in the 
provincial capital.  The market holds several hundred vendors and 
their families who sell products from batteries fine silks to raw 
cashmere.  Oggie reports that conventional wisdom holds this group 
to be raucous, rude, and unkempt, absolutely disrespectful of 
authority, and dismissive of regulation and law.  Any politician who 
enters the bazaar is as likely to be called a "corrupt bastard" and 
be pelted with well-aimed dumplings, than to be engaged in debate on 
issues of concern. Because conventional wisdom considers these 
voters to be beyond control and politically disinterested, political 
parties have decided that it's just not worth going to the 
unpleasant and apparently fruitless effort to curry such unsavory 
voters. However, Oggie noted that these "louts" do have the right to 
vote and represent a sizable but untapped block of votes.  (Comment: 
LES and FSN observers confirm this reticence to court this vote is 
countrywide; they seldom see politicians or senior officials enter 
provincial or Ulaanbaatar bazaars to talk with the vendors during 
campaigns or at any other time for that matter.  As explained to 
Commoff, to be seen in such low places, let alone ask the denizens 
what they want in a candidate and a government is just too beneath 
the political grandees. End comment.) 
 
¶17. (SBU) Oggie let it be known that Enkhbayar would come to the 
bazaar to chat with the vendors throughout the day about their 
concerns.  Oggie promoted this walkabout to prove his candidate's 
true desire to help the small business people of his province. 
Apparently, these small business people, the rude ones, had not 
really been consulted before and were pleased that a politician had 
at last entered their domain to ask them what they wanted.  Did they 
vote for Enkhbayar in response? Oggie, again noting the 68% vote for 
his candidate, argued that they did, and believes the MPRP must put 
aside its misinformed elitism and court these votes throughout the 
country. 
 
MINTON