Nearly 1,000 citizens from Ulaanbaatar and the countryside joined civil movement members on Sukhbaatar square Monday as the first All People’s Congress commenced, calling for greater accountability in the government and more stringent legislation for Mongolia’s vast mineral wealth.

“We will discuss three issues. We are considering that the new Mineral Resources Law is not keeping the Mongolian people’s interests, thus we will discuss the cancellation of this law. We would also like to discuss resigning Parliament members and President N. Enkhbayar,” said G. Baasan, Free Elders’ Association leader, in the opening speech.

Yet citizens who gave speeches trended towards the issues of corruption, poverty and mineral resources, as a parliamentary vote two weeks ago ruled out a possible government resignation.

"Under the long term contracts authorities will sign with companies, they will damage the Mongolian people by a lack of economic profit, environmental damage and living conditions will worsen."

A poll run by the organizers of the event will allow parliamentarians and government officials to truly see how their citizens view them, G. Uyanga, editor-in-chief of the Political newspaper, an organizer of the event said.

“The authority’s capacity has reduced dramatically year by year. Under the World Bank’s research done in 2005, the Mongolian government's capacity is at the same level as it was in 1992," she said.

"The authorities are making the Mongolian living condition worse in order to hide their own faults. However the statistics are saying that Mongolian economic growth is rising by 5 percent every year. Yet there is no influence on people’s lives."

Some citizens attending lauded the organization of the event, even while one of Mongolia's largest civil movements, the Soyombo Movement, stated it would not particpate or support the event.

“I think this congress is a very good step. And the period of change has already come in our society. I’m fully supporting it," B. Zagdsuren a 34 year old citizen of Chingeltei District in Ulaanbaatar said.

"I think Mongolians are very small group of people. In all we are just over two million. We are not 2 billion people. So every Mongolian's national speech is very important in this period."

Police authorites on the scene working crowd control stated that the organizers had received permission and that police presence was only for security reasons and that they wouldn't try to stop the three day event.

"The organizers of the All People’s Congress have discussed and agreed with the Metropolitan Police Office about security issues during the congress,” said Lt Col A. Enkhbayar, Head of the Civil Security Department, Sukhbaatar District Police Department, told Moninfo on Monday.

"However all of Ulaanbaatar's police officers are prepared."

With an expected crowd of 10,000 organizers said nearly 8,000 had voted at the polls over the last three days and they expected it to grow during the last two days of the event.

"Only about half of the expected participants came today," a registration official said.

All images copyright Luke Distelhorst