ULAN BATOR (AFP) - – Mongolia's parliament on Wednesday approved
the resignation of Prime Minister Sanjaa Bayar, who was forced to
step down due to ill health, state television reported.
The 53-year-old Bayar, who was seen as an economic reformer when
he first became premier of the poor but resource-rich Asian nation
in November 2007, said he wished he could have seen out his
term.
"I regret that I couldn't finish what I planned to do," he told
lawmakers, according to images of the parliamentary session
broadcast live on state television. "The government still has a lot
of work to do."
Of the 63 MPs present at the session, 57 of them, or 90.5
percent, voted to approve his resignation.
Health Minister Sambuu Lambaa, cited by local media, said last
month that Bayar was suffering from hepatitis C, which causes liver
problems, and had sought treatment in South Korea.
Bayar took office after assuming the leadership of the Mongolian
People's Revolutionary Party (MPRP), which ruled the country for
decades as a one-party communist state until a peaceful move to
multi-party politics in the 1990s.
Lawmakers again voted to keep him in his post in September 2008,
two months after riots erupted in the capital Ulan Bator over a
disputed June parliamentary election victory by the MPRP. Five
people were killed.
The MPRP still controls the 76-seat parliament, but Tsakhiagiin
Elbegdorj of the opposition Democratic Party won the presidency in
May, creating a virtual coalition government.
The MPRP later Wednesday nominated current Foreign Minister
Sukhbaatar Batbold to replace Bayar, state media reported. The
nomination of Batbold, who was educated in Moscow and London, was
to be submitted to lawmakers for a vote.
First deputy prime minister Altanhuyag Norov will carry out
Bayar's duties in the interim.
Mongolia shook off communist rule in 1990 without a shot being
fired, and the first democratic elections were held in 1992.
The landlocked country, which is wedged between China and
Russia, has struggled to develop a sustainable economy since
turning to capitalism two decades ago.
But its rich deposits of copper, gold, uranium, silver and oil
have caught the eye of foreign investors.
Three weeks ago, the government sealed a multi-billion-dollar
deal with Canada's Ivanhoe Mines and Anglo-Australian miner Rio
Tinto to develop one of the world's richest copper deposits, after
years of negotiations.