MONGOLIA's opposition Democratic Union Coalition stormed to a landslide victory yesterday in parliamentary elections, toppling the former communists who have ruled the vast land of steppes for 75 years.
The democrats swept more than double the seats won by the ruling Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (MPRP), capturing 48 of 76 seats in the Great Hural, or parliament, up from just six in 1992, surprising diplomats and the opposition itself.
"We have victory", said Mr Enkhsaikhan, head of the coalition that allies the two main opposition parties, the National Democratic Party (NDP) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP). "We are setting the sights of the Mongolian people into the next century".
Sunday's polls were the second for the Great Hural under a post communist constitution adopted in 1992. Democratic protests ended communist rule of the pastoral nation in 1990.
A cheering crowd of hundreds dancing, hugging each other and weeping for joy greeted victorious coalition officials.
This means for the coalition and for us that for the first time in the contemporary history of Mongolia, we are democratic, the SDP party chief, Mr Gonchigdorj, said in an interview.
"We have a heavy task on our shoulders but we are happy that the task is on us", said Mr Gonchigdorj, who scored an up set to defeat the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Purevdorj.
Coalition officials said the immediate task was to form a government and tackle economic and social ills that have racked the land of 2.3 million people, many of them nomadic sheep herders, in its transition from Soviet style planning to free market democracy.