By Julian Dierkes
As Bulgan B recently pointed out to me, very member of PM Oyun-Erdene’s new cabinet is an MP!
Maybe not surprising for many parliamentary democracies, but this has been a lingering topic of discussion for many years. Ministers who are also Members of Parliament are generally referred to as wearing a “double deel“, wearing two hats perhaps being the right English analogy.
On our blog, a search for “double deel” will point you at 18 posts many of which refer to proposed or envisioned constitutional amendments. This has been that big an issue for Mongolian political discussions.
Note that the first mention of “double deel” that the search generates is a 2014 post speculating about Ch Saikhanbileg’s cabinet, a very grand coalition. Other parallels from that post:
The rationale behind the super coalition (as opposed to a grand coalition of DP + MPP which would have a clear majority in parliament already) seems to lie in the recognition of the current economic crisis and the need for parliament to take responsibility for this crisis and to take collective action. It’s not clear to me in this logic why the DP and its coalition partners don’t bear primary responsibility for the crisis, but at the same time, I certainly welcome a super coalition as a constellation that seems more likely to tackle real issues by avoiding blaming each other. I can’t imagine that blaming the three-member opposition of independent MPs will fly as an electoral strategy in June 2016.
Also, note
Some of the prominent politicians who seem to be absent from speculation about cabinet posts: “Genco” Battulga, R Amarjargal, “Fortuna” Batbayar, L Bold, Kh Temuujin.
Two of those individuals, Kh Battulga and Kh Temuujin are back in parliament 10 years later, but not included in the cabinet.
People who ended up being appointed to Saikhanbileg’s grand coalition cabinet back in 2014 include: U Khurelsukh (then Deputy PM, now president) and L Gantumuur (then Minister of Education, Culture and Science, now DP chief and Deputy PM).
One of the elements of discussions of the double deel has been the size of parliament, or more importantly the relative size of cabinet vs parliament if there are many members of cabinet wearing the double deel. This is something that Julian Dierkes commented on in a 2015 post already. Given that that has been a long-standing topic in Mongolian discussions, one might say that fears about this relation in size have been alleviated by the enlargement of parliament. 22 ministers are only 1/5 of the membership of the new Ikh Khural when there are 126 members, not the nearly 30% that would have implied in a 76-member parliament.
Reflection of Power Balance
Direct Election vs Party List MPs
In the run-up to the election, we had already considered implications of the expansion of parliament for the status and power of individual MPs. To some political actors, it seems that a directly-elected seat counts for more than being elected off the party list. The cabinet appointment would seem to reinforce that view in that all MPP members of the cabinet were directly elected. For the DP and KhUN this may be less relevant, in part because party list-elected MPs make up a bigger portion of their MPs. Also, in the case of the opposition parties, some parts of the party leadership chose to run via the party list rather than in a constituency. For example, L Gantumuur for the DP and T Dorjkhand for KhUN were both named to the top spot on the party list for their respective parties as party leaders. Within the opposition, there might thus be less of a perception of a power differential between these two types of MPs.
Party Power within the DP
Following the surge of DP seats in the election and the apparent success of some candidates aligned with frm pres Kh Battulga, it was unclear who might even be conducting coalition discussions to speak for the DP. It may be noteworthy that neither Battulga, nor frm PM N Altankhuyag were included in cabinet. It is obviously impossible to know from the outside of these discussions whether the DP had proposed either and had been refused by the PM, or whether their names were not floated. This does seem to suggest that a renewed takeover of the party by Battulga and his associates may not have happened.
Follow
