R 040854Z SEP 09
FM AMEMBASSY ULAANBAATAR
TO SECSTATE WASHDC 3013
INFO AMEMBASSY BEIJING 
AMEMBASSY BERN 
AMEMBASSY KUWAIT 
AMEMBASSY MOSCOW 
AMEMBASSY SEOUL 
AMEMBASSY SOFIA 
AMEMBASSY STOCKHOLM 
AMEMBASSY TOKYO 
USMISSION GENEVA

C O N F I D E N T I A L ULAANBAATAR 000257 
 
 
STATE FOR EAP/CM AND INR/EAP 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/04/2034 
TAGS: PREL PGOV PINR MG
SUBJECT: AMBASSADORSHIPS AND POLITICS IN MONGOLIA 
 
Classified By: Political Counselor Andrew K. Covington, Reasons 1.4 (b) 
 and (d) 
 
¶1. (C) Summary: Mongolia has 33 diplomatic missions 
worldwide, and many key ambassadorships are coming vacant at 
the start of the Elbegdorj presidency.  The handling of these 
appointments provides significant insight into political 
maneuvering in Mongolia.  Financial, ethnic, religious, 
social, and political considerations are all in play.  Here 
we examine the appointments to several key posts, including 
Moscow, Beijing, Geneva, Stockholm, Kuwait, and Sofia.  End 
Summary. 
 
------------------------------------- 
THE AMBASSADORIAL APPOINTMENT PROCESS 
------------------------------------- 
 
¶2. (SBU) Ambassadors are appointed to three-year terms.  When 
a position becomes vacant, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs 
and Trade (MFAT) makes an initial suggestion to the president 
regarding who might fill the vacancy.  The president may 
accept this recommendation or may nominate another candidate. 
 In either case, the president submits a name to Parliament's 
Standing Committee (SC) on Security and Foreign Policy, which 
must approve the nomination and send it forward to a plenary 
session for simple-majority approval.  The SC chair has the 
power to delay or hold these nominations, and as such is a 
key player.  The current chair of the Security and Foreign 
Policy Standing Committee is Z. Enkhbold, a DP member close 
to Elbegdorj. 
 
¶3. (C) Although the president has the power to recall 
ambassadors before their terms are complete, in practice this 
is not done without a compelling argument, since such a 
recall might invoke the wrath of Parliament, of which Prime 
Minister Bayar's Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party 
(MPRP) has a majority of seats.  Such a scenario might 
destabilize the MPRP-DP coalition government, which Elbegdorj 
initially opposed last fall but now acknowledges as necessary 
in this time of fiscal and economic crisis.  Moreover, a 
presidential recall of an ambassador might invite the 
MPRP-controlled Parliament to vote down Elbegdorj's 
replacement for that position. 
 
---------------------- 
CASE STUDY ONE: MOSCOW 
---------------------- 
 
¶4. (C) The new ambassador to Russia is D. Idevkhiten, a 
former MP who lost his seat in 2008 and who is associated 
with former President Enkhbayar (MPRP).  Idevkhiten's 
appointment is testimony to the lingering influence Enkhbayar 
has in Mongolian politics.  Enkhbayar is widely expected to 
run for a vacant seat in Parliament in a by-election on 
October 18; the MPRP will nominate its candidate on September 
¶25. 
 
¶5. (C) Elbegdorj's willingness to appoint Enkhbayar's 
associate to this key position indicates a shrewd balancing 
of the president's interactions with factions of the MPRP: 
Former President Enkhbayar and Prime Minister Bayar are known 
to dislike one another and to compete for influence within 
the MPRP.  Bayar is a former ambassador to Russia, and as 
such would have preferred one of his own to fill this 
position.  However, Elbegdorj apparently would rather not see 
the current PM's considerable power augmented in this way. 
Instead, in this instance Elbegdorj has supported the 
Enkhbayar faction, which is still reeling from Enkhbayar's 
loss of the presidency to Elbegdorj. 
 
---------------------- 
CASE STUDY TWO: GENEVA 
---------------------- 
 
¶6. (C) Elbegdorj has appointed the former foreign policy 
advisor to Enkhbayar, L. Orgil, to head the mission in 
Geneva.  This is another instance of keeping Bayar's 
supporters mostly out of the diplomatic equation while also 
claiming bipartisan handling of diplomatic appointments. 
Orgil is not a member of the MPRP, but he and Enkhbayar are 
ethnic Buriats with family connections to Khentii Province. 
 
--------------------------- 
CASE STUDY THREE: STOCKHOLM 
--------------------------- 
 
¶7. (C) Former MPRP bureaucrat B. Enkhmandakh is now the 
ambassador to Sweden.  Enkhmandakh is an Enkhbayar loyalist 
whom many Enkhbayar opponents accuse of taking exclusive 
blame for an incident several years ago involving alleged 
bribes from Macanese casinos, thereby keeping Enkhbayar out 
of trouble.  Regardless of the accuracy of these accusations, 
Enkhbayar likely assisted Enkhmandakh after the latter's 
release from prison, eventually helping Enkhmandakh to become 
a political attache at the embassy in London and, in a 
dramatic career jump immediately thereafter, Vice Foreign 
Minister in 2007.  (Note: Vice Minister positions are largely 
ceremonial, generally lucrative, and were nearly eliminated 
prior to the formation in 2008 of the coalition government, 
which necessitated more plum positions to hand out.  End 
Note.) 
 
---------------------- 
CASE STUDY FOUR: SOFIA 
---------------------- 
 
¶8. (C) Unfortunately for Enkhbayar, Elbegdorj's goodwill ends 
with Moscow, Geneva, and Stockholm.  Recall there is a strong 
possibility that Enkhbayar will run for a seat in Parliament 
in October.  This seat is located in the DP-leaning 
Chingeltei District of Ulaanbaatar; Elbegdorj vacated the 
seat in June upon his inauguration.  Earlier this summer, the 
politically shrewd Civil Will Party (CWP) leader, Oyun (an MP 
and former FM), suggested that her party would also run a 
candidate in the October by-election, thereby pulling votes 
from the DP.  She indicated the candidate would likely be the 
party's deputy chair, Ts. Gankhuyag.  Such a scenario would 
obviously benefit the MPRP. 
 
¶9. (C) Soon after Oyun's announcement, Gankhuyag found 
himself nominated ambassador to Bulgaria.  In this way, 
Oyun's party gets an ambassadorship from the DP in return for 
not putting forth a candidate in October.  The CWP also 
refrained from running a candidate in the closely contested 
presidential election in May that put President Elbegdorj in 
office, so we can expect to see DP gratitude toward the CWP 
(and the Greens, for the same reason) for some time. 
Gankhuyag is no Russophile, having inquired with poloff 
earlier this year about uranium cooperation prospects with 
the United States. 
 
----------------------- 
CASE STUDY FIVE: KUWAIT 
----------------------- 
 
¶10. (C) The appointment of K. Sairaan as ambassador to Kuwait 
is the most curious case examined here.  Sairaan is a former 
career diplomat (previously ambassador to Egypt) and an 
ethnic Kazakh Muslim from Bayan-Olgii Province who left the 
MFAT to become an MP for the Democratic Party in 2004.  In 
2008, Elbegdorj refused to allow Sairaan to run again, so 
Sairaan did so as an independent and lost.  This estrangement 
from the DP led him to become the investment policy advisor 
to PM Bayar.  Despite there being little love lost between 
Elbegdorj and Sairaan, the president has tapped him as envoy 
to Kuwait in recognition of Sairaan's extensive influence in 
the Muslim world.  The most illustrative example of this 
influence is Sairaan's engagement with the Kuwaiti leadership 
during his time as an MP to obtain $12 million to build a new 
complex for the Mongolian Parliament.  (Note: Although the 
money came to Mongolia, a building site has not yet been 
identified and no one can say exactly where the funds now 
are.  End Note.) 
 
----------------------- 
CASE STUDY SIX: BEIJING 
----------------------- 
 
¶11. (C) Of course, Elbegdorj can be expected to nominate some 
of his own top people to ambassadorships.  In the case of 
Beijing, the president tapped his foreign policy advisor, Ts. 
Sukhbaatar, for the appointment.  His previous position was 
as International Secretary for the DP, and he earlier served 
as ambassador to the United Kingdom.  Sukhbaatar has not yet 
departed for Beijing.  (Biographical note: His wife, 
Oyunchimeg, is the deputy chief of the Mongolian Customs 
Office.  End note.) 
 
-------------------- 
THE CAREER DIPLOMATS 
-------------------- 
 
¶12. (SBU) Yes, career diplomats also have a place in this 
equation.  Elbegdorj has tapped Kh. Ayurzana, the Director of 
the Neighboring  Countries Department at MFAT, to head the 
mission to Mongolia's almost-neighbor, Kazakhstan.  (Note: 
The population of Bayan-Olgii, the westernmost province of 
Mongolia, is 90 percent Kazakh.  End Note.)  T. Zalaa-Uul, 
formerly a counselor at the MFAT, is heading to Ottawa, which 
is a key relationship due to significant mining investments 
in Mongolia by Canadian companies.  B. Davaadorj, who was the 
advisor to the ambassador in Berlin, has been elevated to the 
top job there.  Germany is Mongolia's most significant 
Western European relationship and boasts robust cultural and 
commercial ties.  None of these career diplomats is known to 
have notable political leanings. 
 
 
MINTON