Protests demanding democracy brought in the new year in Taragai, beginning on New Year’s Eve and continuing into today. The protests have occupied Tebengri Square in front of the People’s Great Khural building, in the capital Bor-Öndör.
The protesters are calling for an end to the government of the Taragaian People’s Revolutionary Party (TPRP), which has led the country since 1931 as a communist regime. They have also called for the resignation of Chairman Jirghogadai Tömörbataar as the nation’s leader.
“The rest of the world is moving forward, economically, socially and politically. Taragai continues to be stuck in the past, a past which does not work,” Khadagan Daldurkhan told DTNS. Daldurkhan is the leader of the Taragaian Democratic Front, a coalition of democratic movements in the country. “We just want what the other free nations of the world have – freedom of speech, freedom in our politics.”
In his annual speech to begin the new year, Tömörbataar rebuffed such demands and dismissed the protesters as “agitators influenced by foreign ideas and foreign elements.”
“Taragai will not fall victim to such counter-revolutionary propaganda. Our people are strong and wise, and we will reject the aspirations of the boot-licking capitalists and their foreign political lackeys,” Tömörbataar said in his speech. During the speech, Tömörbataar also said that the economic concerns of Taragaians would be met by the next five-year plan “which, if we work hard enough, will actually be met in four years”.
In a separate announcement, the Director of State Security, Chaghagan Khoga, said that he had received approval from the Chairman to “remove any agitators and counter-revolutionary elements currently occuping the center of Bor-Öndör”. Khoga warned that his forces would begin removing the protestors within 48 hours if they had not complied with the order to leave the area.
