(as the title implies, I’m reconstructing what I think happened based on news stories, with assistance from Registan’s Mongolia archives and Google News. I’m not in Mongolia and will defer for authority to eyewitnesses like Chris Miller, New Mongols, Guido and Eric, and many others I unintentionally left out.).

(for those of you joining us in mid-story, here’s a good backgrounder.)

January 2, 2005:
• Ts. Bataa, a Member of Parliament, defects from the Motherland Democratic Coalition (hereafter Democratic Party) to the MPRP, giving the latter 38 seats, or exactly 50%.
  January 11:
  • Enkhbold and Elbegdorj square off.
  • Enkhbold later holds a press conference accusing Elbegdorj of mismanaging the government.
  • Democratic Party makes counter-accusations
  • Lots more saber-rattling, but collapse appears inevitable.
  January 12:
  • MPRP MPs demand the resignation of Prime Minister Elbegdorj.
  • Cabinet falls as 10 of 18 ministers resign with the apparent goal of forcing Elbegdorj from office.
  • Political Trouble Brewing: 1,500 people storm MPRP headquarters.(Photos)

  January 13:

  • Parliament votes to dissolve the government.
  • Elbegdorj officially resigns.

  January 16:

  • Protestors issue demands.
  • Survey results (with translation) for January 12-13 released.

  January 17:

  • MPRP submits the name of Enkhbold for nomination for Prime Minister.

  January 26:

  • Enkhbold appointed Prime Minister.
  • Democratic Party becomes minority party and shadow government with Civil Will.
  • 1,500 protestors issue nine demands of the government
  • Much remains to be resolved.

  January 28:

  • New cabinet announced.

  As a mathematician determines a line through regression from points, I have tried to create a logical and structured outline from various news snippets. In terms of the cause-and-effect, I think that what happened was that party relations broke down, and the 10 members, all from the MPRP, resigned in order to force the reconstitution of the government (which in parliamentarian terms means the executive branch – the PM and his ministers), which would put Elbegdorj of the Democratic Party out of a job. This angered protestors, who stormed (and apparently looted) the MPRP headquarters. Since neither the MPRP nor Democratic Party has a majority in Parliament, neither can form a government while excluding the other.

  Some of the details (particularly the chronology) are a bit hazy. Yuu-bna points out, for example, that news outlets confused the Parliament building with MPRP headquarters.

  Gleanings:

  • USAID Mongolia Blog and EurasiaNet have been completely silent throughout.
  • Bloomberg summarizes the effects on business.
  Analysis and background
• We’ll get to the crisis developing in Kyrgyzstan soon…

I added a few documents from my work to the blog. I don’t know how to enable comments on each, so please use this posting to comment on them. (and please comment - more feedback = better thesis!). Here’s a Table of Contents, which I’ll use to keep all of the pieces in order.

Here are two semi-complete sections:

• Prologue
• Historical Narrative

I also posted a reflection I wrote at the end of my travels - although I don’t necessarily agree with everything that I wrote there (on September 1, 2005), I use it to look back on the realities of Central Asia.

I’m having trouble with formatting, so if you want a copy with all of the proper paragraph breaks, citations and formatting, email me.

Sorry for not blogging in a long time - I’ve been digging my way out from beneath a pile of books and articles on democracy and transitions theory - Dahl, Rawls, Lipset, Schumpeter, etc. I’ll throw some text on the grill later this week (hopefully).

And now for the news:

In PARADE Magazine’s annual 10 Worst Dictators listed Islam Karimov as the world’s fifth-worst dictator. What propelled him from fifteenth was Andijan, although expelling the American military from the Karshi-Khanabad air base probably didn’t help. Niyazov scored eighth, the same as 2005 and 2004. However, as the article notes, the list is getting steadily worse, and maintaining the same position actually indicates a downward trend.