Enhbayar, Nambaryn

▪ 2001

      Nambaryn Enhbayar, the chairman since 1997 of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (MPRP), was appointed Mongolia's new prime minister on July 26, 2000, following the landslide election victory of the MPRP. With a view toward modernizing the MPRP, Enhbayar had cut the party's ties to its communist past, turned it into a democratic socialist party, and pointed it along the road of market reform. He had visited Washington, London, Paris, Beijing, and other capitals and established contacts with world leaders ranging from British Prime Minister Tony Blair to the Dalai Lama, the exiled religious and political leader of Tibet. Enhbayar also envisaged an important role for Mongolia's Lamaist religion in reestablishing traditional moral values.

      Enhbayar was born on June 1, 1958, in the Mongolian capital, Ulaanbaatar, and he graduated in 1980 from what is now known as the Maksim Gorky Institute of World Literature in Moscow. After returning home, he worked as a translator and an editor for the committee of the Mongolian Union of Writers until 1983, when he became head of the union's foreign relations department. He was elected vice president of the Mongolian Translators' Association in 1990, and in November of that year he was appointed chief deputy chairman of the Mongolian Culture and Art Development Committee (formerly the Ministry of Culture), a post he held for some 18 months.

      Enhbayar's political career took off in June 1992 when, standing as a candidate for the MPRP, he won the seat for Ulaanbaatar Suhbaatar 23 constituency in the State Great Hural (national assembly) elections. He was appointed minister of culture in August 1992 and served in the government of Prime Minister Puntsagiyn Jasray for four years. In October 1992 he was elected to the MPRP Little Hural (the former Central Committee).

      Enhbayar replaced Budragchaagiyn Dash-Yondon as secretary-general of the MPRP in July 1996 and was reelected at the party's 22nd Congress in February 1997, but he was effectively demoted following Natsagiyn Bagabandi's election to the newly created post of MPRP chairman. Bagabandi was elected president of Mongolia in May 1997, however, and a month later Enhbayar took over the MPRP chairmanship. He did not stand in the 1996 general elections but returned to the Great Hural in August 1997 after winning the by-election in Bagabandi's Zavhan 21 constituency. Enhbayar was reelected to the Great Hural on July 2, 2000, this time for Ulaanbaatar Bayangol 65 constituency, with a majority of over 6,000 votes. Before becoming prime minister, Enhbayar also acted as an adviser to the Asian Development Bank.

Alan J.K. Sanders

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