Violence follows Mongolia election

Protesters alleging voting fraud clashed with Mongolian police Tuesday as election results indicated the ruling party is on course to win the majority it needs to pass a disputed law on sharing the country's natural wealth.

The protesters clashed with police outside the General Election Commission offices and the headquarters of the ruling Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party.

Additional police in riot gear were sent to the party's headquarters, where about 200 protesters threw stones at the police and the building.

"The demonstrators are acting like hooligans and violating social order," said police spokesman Sainbayar, who like some Mongolians goes by one name.

Other protesters pushed into the election commission offices to demand that they resign over voting irregularities and fraud. The specific nature of the protesters' complaints was not immediately clear.

According to preliminary results gathered from each voting district, the MPRP _ which also governed the country when it was a Soviet satellite _ won 46 seats in Sunday's vote. That would give the party far more than half of the 76 seats in parliament, called the State Great Khural.

The other major party, the Mongolian Democratic Party, took 26 seats. An independent won one seat and a minor party another. Results in two other seat were not clear yet.

The General Election Commission has until July 10 to announce the final results.

Mongolia, a mostly poor country sandwiched between China and Russia, is struggling to modernize its nomadic, agriculture-based economy. The government says per capita income is just $1,500 a year.

The two main political parties focused their campaigns on how to tap recently discovered huge mineral deposits _ including copper, gold and coal _ but disagreed over whether the government or private sector should hold a majority stake.

The difference meant the outgoing parliament was unable to pass an amendment to the Minerals Law, which kept the government from concluding investment agreements with international mining giants to develop mineral deposits in the Gobi Desert.

With a large majority, the MPRP may now be able to have parliament pass the new law.

The current Minerals Law gives the government the right to take up to a 50 percent interest in an important mineral deposit if state funds were used to discover it.

The proposed change would give Mongolia a minimum 51 percent stake. But while the MPRP wants the government to hold that stake, the Mongolian Democratic Party says private Mongolian companies should be able to hold it.

Parliamentary elections are held every four years. Mongolia, with a population 2.6 million, stopped being a satellite state of the Soviet Union in 1990.