Mongolia’s prime minister has resigned a day after protests against the government’s Covid-19 controls erupted in the capital Ulaanbaatar.
Prime Minister Khurelsukh Ukhnaa has submitted his resignation and a proposal to dissolve his government after hundreds gathered outside the parliament building to protest against the policy. The parliament, which is controlled by Khurelsukh’s Mongol People’s Party, on Thursday voted overwhelmingly to accept his resignation.
Photographer: Mikhail Klimentyev / AP Photo
In a speech on Thursday, Prime Minister Battulga Khaltmaa, of the rival Democratic Party, accused him of organizing the protests. Battulga, whose term expires later this year, expressed shock in a separate speech over Khurelsukh’s remarks.
“I wonder and wonder why the Prime Minister of Mongolia did such an act that undermined the confidence of the Mongol people, undermined national unity and openly slandered the President of Mongolia,” Battulga said in a transcript on the presidential website. .
The protests erupted after a video showing a mother in a bathrobe in a bath’s maternity ward being discharged from a local maternity hospital because she tested positive for the coronavirus was widely circulated. Protesters flocked to parliament to protest her treatment Wednesday. Some wore only bathrobes and slippers to show solidarity with the woman.
Although the protests were not unusually large, they lasted until winter night, when temperatures could drop to -40 degrees Celsius (-40 Fahrenheit). Protesters said they were broader concerned about prolonged closures and restrictions on movement, as well as a ban on cross-border travel.
The vast country of 3.3 million people – trapped between Russia and China – has so far avoided the outbreaks of the coronavirus that have plagued others. Mongolia has reported fewer than 1,600 infections since March, with 526 active cases as of Thursday.
(Add resignation accepted by legislators in the third paragraph)