Former MP, minister, writer and political activist Oyungerel Tsedevdamba came of age during Mongolia’s peaceful democratic revolution. More than three decades later, she speaks to Novastan Editor-in-Chief Mathieu Lemoine about corruption, party financing, women in politics, younger voters, local democracy and why remembering the country’s communist past still matters.

When Mongolia’s democratic revolution unfolded in the winter of 1989-1990, Oyungerel Tsedevdamba was 24. The peaceful transition ended the one-party rule, opened the way to multiparty elections and political pluralism, and was followed by a new constitution in 1992.

For Tsedevdamba, however, the transformation was experienced less through constitutional language than through something more immediate: the sudden possibility of choice.

“The idea of having choices was so new,” she tells Novastan. Freedom to speak, travel, read and participate politically seemed almost unimaginable only a short time before. Thirty-six years later, she remains emphatically proud of what she calls Mongolia’s “homegrown democracy” – but far more critical of the political institutions that have developed within it.

Her concerns range from party financing and corruption to declining citizen participation in local government. At the same time, she sees reasons for optimism in younger voters, the increasing normality of women entering politics and a continuing public willingness to defend democratic freedoms.

“The idea of having choices was so new”

Novastan: You were 24 during Mongolia’s peaceful democratic revolution in 1990 and have described discovering the Universal Declaration of Human Rights at that time as formative. Looking back more than three decades later, what part of the democratic promise of 1990 do you think Mongolia has fulfilled most successfully, and where has it fallen furthest short?

Oyungerel Tsedevdamba: When I was 24, I was fascinated by the idea that we could have a free market, freedom of speech and freedom to travel. The multiparty system and elections were things we did not know much about, but I was still so excited simply to have more choices – including in politics.

The idea of having choices was so new. The possibility of being free to learn, read or watch whatever you wanted was fascinating. The 1990 democratic revolution fulfilled the promises of its time and gave us even more than we could have imagined possible.

I am very proud that we in Mongolia managed to build a homegrown democracy. Looking back 36 years later, I am still fascinated by the transformation we went through. But now we need to work on the future and free our political parties and government from corruption, which I see as the biggest enemy of democracy in our country.

Democracy between Russia and China

Mongolia’s democratic trajectory is unusual in its regional setting. Landlocked between Russia and China, it moved from Soviet-aligned one-party rule to a multiparty political system after the peaceful revolution of 1990. Its foreign policy has since sought relationships beyond its two immediate neighbours while maintaining close economic and political ties with both.

Read more on Novastan: “Mongolia cannot be understood through one lens”: Dr. Mendee Jargalsaikhan on democracy, China and Central Asia

Mongolia is often presented internationally as an exceptional democratic case between Russia and China. Does that description still feel accurate from inside the country, or does it obscure weaknesses in Mongolia’s democratic institutions and political culture?

I agree with that description. We made many decisions that our neighbours and other post-communist countries did not. Our path was bloodless and seemingly smooth, although underneath that were many everyday struggles that continue today.

Sometimes even Mongolia’s extreme cold tests whether people are prepared to demonstrate against government decisions. When young people do so at minus 30 degrees, I find that refreshing – and very Mongolian.

But when it comes to weaknesses in our democratic institutions and political culture, I believe the weakest institutions are the two major parties, the Mongolian People’s Party and the Democratic Party. Their financing systems are unsustainable and, in my view, systematically erode democracy and good governance.

The two parties have developed what I see as a dangerous competition for political wealth. That is one of the principal risks to the future of Mongolian democracy.

Leaving the Democratic Party after 29 years

You spent many years within the Democratic Party before founding the Civic Unity Party. What convinced you that Mongolia needed a new political party rather than reform of the existing opposition?

Leaving the Democratic Party after 29 years as a loyal member was the most painful political decision I have ever made. I cried as if I were divorcing someone I loved. But eventually I decided that enough was enough.

For years, I had openly criticised the financial system through which the party conducted its everyday activities and internal electoral processes. Many young people and women were unable to compete for nominations because of increasingly heavy party fees. In one parliamentary cycle, people seeking to participate in internal competition for a candidacy were expected to pay 100 million tugriks (around EUR 24,000).

When I concluded that my attempts to change this system had failed, I decided to leave the Democratic Party and establish the Civic Unity Party (CUP). Ideologically, CUP is close to the Democratic Party, but we are trying to build a different institutional culture.

Accessibility and affordability of politics for ordinary Mongolian citizens are central to that vision. Institutions do not have to be big and expensive. They should provide platforms through which citizens can exercise their constitutional rights. Young people, women, small-business owners and even pensioners should be able to participate without needing substantial personal wealth.

More women in parliament – but persistent barriers

The 2024 parliamentary election marked a major increase in women’s representation. Thirty-two women were elected to Mongolia’s expanded 126-seat parliament, bringing women’s representation to 25.4 percent. Twenty-four of them entered parliament through party lists operating under a gender “zipper” requirement.

Women performed much better through proportional party lists than in constituency contests. Does that show that quotas and electoral reform are working, or that deeper barriers to women winning political power remain?

Women’s participation in parliament has been increasing steadily since proportional representation was first introduced into parliamentary elections in 2012. But there is an interesting difference. In 2012, 45 percent of women MPs were elected from constituencies, including myself. In 2024, that figure was only 25 percent.

In my view, one reason for women’s lower success in constituency races in 2024 was the unusually large size of those constituencies. Electoral reform and quotas are generally working, but with reasonably sized constituencies there would be more room for women to achieve stronger representation.

You have been involved in women’s political participation for decades. What has changed most profoundly since the 1990s?

The biggest change I have witnessed over 35 years in politics is that politics has become a normal activity for women. Society has changed and become more accepting of women participating in political life.

Read more on Novastan: More Women in Central Asian Politics – But Where Is the Power?

But there are regions where resistance remains stronger. In parts of Mongolia’s eastern steppe, for example in Sükhbaatar province, masculine traditions associated with horse culture remain particularly prominent. Bayan-Ölgii also has a distinctive social and cultural context in which women can face different barriers to political participation.

The important thing is that the basic perception has changed. A woman entering politics is no longer regarded as something inherently unusual.

A younger political culture

You spoke positively in 2024 about seeing young people eager to vote and change the country. Is Mongolia’s younger generation developing a different political culture from the generation that led the democratic transition?

Yes. The younger generation is much more connected through the internet than the generation that led Mongolia through the democratic transition. They are demanding an end to corruption and the misuse of public resources – areas where they believe established parties have failed.

They also demand greater transparency, stronger ethical standards and a lower tax burden. What is particularly interesting is the way they express political views. They use comedy, social media, music and other creative forms of communication much more naturally than previous generations did.

“I was shocked”: discovering local democracy from the inside

Tsedevdamba is now an elected council member in Ulaanbaatar’s Khan-Uul District. The experience, she says, challenged assumptions she had developed during years in national politics.

Has working at the local level changed the way you think about democracy?

I was actually shocked by how detached many people have become from local government. Citizens who benefit directly from government programmes may have some interaction with it, but many others seem largely ignored.

The level of citizen participation in local democracy has decreased significantly compared with the period from 2012 to 2016. There are no longer the same opportunities for citizens to participate in local budget hearings or propose micro-projects through khoroo-level budgets.

Working at the local level has therefore given me a new political goal: restoring citizens’ power in local government. I believe Mongolia has experienced democratic backsliding at the local level during the past decade, and some of these changes have become so normalised that, in her view, local decision-makers barely question them anymore.

Tsedevdamba points to one case from Khan-Uul District as an example. In November 2024, she says district councillors voted to include the head judge of the district court in a local crime-prevention committee. She opposed the decision and subsequently complained to Mongolia’s Judicial General Council. According to her account, the council later instructed local representative bodies that judges should not participate in such committees, after which Khan-Uul’s council reversed its decision.

What toilets taught a former minister about politics

Some of Tsedevdamba’s most concrete lessons about politics have come not from parliament but from her work through Local Solutions and the “Let’s Change Our Toilets” campaign.

Your grassroots work focuses on very practical questions of sanitation and quality of life. What has it taught you about the gap between national policy and everyday reality?

The gap is huge. The more wealth the country generates, the further politicians can become from grassroots realities. If decision-makers better understood the basic realities of Mongolian lives and the natural environment, and invested more efficiently in improving living conditions, I believe the resources Mongolia already generates could do much more to reduce air and soil pollution and create a healthier environment.

Working to replace pit toilets for the past nine years has taught me how families actually make decisions, what they prioritise and what really matters to them. Learning from families, adapting to their needs and answering their questions made me realise how far removed I myself had been from those realities during much of my political career. I had been one of those politicians who was “off the ground.”

Read more on Novastan: Keeping the heat in: Mongolia’s overlooked answer to Ulaanbaatar’s air pollution

An average Mongolian household, by my estimate, lives on around $950 (approximately EUR 835) a month and has to stretch that income across housing, food, clothing for four seasons, winter heating, schooling and transport, often while dealing directly with an extremely harsh climate. Trying to change sanitation through market mechanisms rather than simply handing out free toilets was probably one of the best decisions I made because it forced us to understand what people were genuinely prepared and able to choose.

The progress has been slow – around 1,600 toilets changed over nine years – but that slowness has itself been a valuable lesson. I will not stop simply because the change is slow. Next summer, we plan to take the project further into the countryside, establish a camp on the steppe and add new showroom and sales locations in Ulaanbaatar.

Democracy and geopolitics

Mongolia’s democratic identity is often discussed geopolitically because of its position between Russia and China. How much does that geography constrain the country politically today?

Our domestic democratic process is relatively insulated from geopolitics, although new challenges are emerging, including bots and false information online.

Because of Mongolia’s unique geographic position, there has historically been broad political agreement that foreign policy should not become an arena for partisan competition. That consensus can constrain how openly political forces express different views on international issues, but it also helps prevent Mongolia’s internal political competition from being absorbed completely into wider geopolitical divides.

Read more on Novastan: Bolor Lkhaajav: “Mongolia does not need to choose between Russia and China”

Remembering what came before 1990

Tsedevdamba’s political work has long overlapped with another concern: historical memory. Her fiction explores the repression and social transformation of Mongolia’s communist period, partly through research into her own family history.

How important is historical memory to Mongolia’s democracy today? Do younger Mongolians sufficiently understand the repression and authoritarianism that preceded 1990?

One fear I had during the early years of democracy was that politicians from the former communist system would encourage nostalgia for the communist past among younger generations and make authoritarianism seem attractive again.

In 2005, government officials secretly burned copies of three volumes of research documenting the repression of the 1930s. For me, that was a wake-up call. Younger Mongolians had not experienced communism themselves. If our generation did not describe the full reality of that system, they could end up seeing only the brighter, propagandised version of the past.

That was one reason I wrote three volumes of historical fiction: The Green-Eyed Lama, covering 1937-1946; Sixty White Sheep, covering 1947-1952; and Uur River Stone, set around 1959 – the year our history textbooks mark as the official “victory of socialism.”

Together, the books explore what happened as private economic activity was dismantled and people lost the ability to run businesses, produce goods independently or freely expand their herds. What makes me particularly happy is that the books continue to be read widely, especially by young people. Mongolia’s younger generation is genuinely keen to understand the country’s history, and I find that very heartening.

By Mathieu Lemoine, Editor-in-Chief for Novastan English.

The post “The idea of having choices was so new”: Oyungerel Tsedevdamba on Mongolia’s democracy 36 years later appeared first on Novastan English.