Are we deadass beyond saving?
People outside Mongolia hear “democracy” and imagine freedom, development, or even prosperity. What we got was corruption beyond imagination.
After the Soviet era ended, Mongolia switched to democracy with huge hopes. People thought foreign investment and free markets would modernize the country. Instead, a small circle of politicians and oligarchs (MAK for example) captured everything. Every election cycle is the same: promises about fighting corruption, improving infrastructure, reducing pollution, fixing traffic, helping ger district families. Then nothing changes.
Ulaanbaatar is a capital city in 2026 with no metro system despite traffic being absolutely catastrophic. Public transport is overcrowded, unreliable, and underdeveloped for a city this size and climate. Winters regularly hit brutal temperatures, yet many poorer families in ger districts still struggle with proper heating and basic infrastructure. Meanwhile luxury apartments and SUVs keep multiplying for the rich. Some fuckers legit driving a Lambo while others cant afford meat.
Salaries are low compared to living costs. Young people either want to leave the country or work themselves to exhaustion just to survive. The wealth gap gets worse every year. Mining money flows into the hands of political families and connected businessmen while ordinary people breathe toxic air in winter and sit in traffic for hours every day.
And whenever someone actually tries to change something, politics crushes it. Look at the Tenuun Ogoo Green Bus bus scandal. The entire public transport sector became another example of corruption, accusations, and political warfare instead of genuine reform. It feels like every major infrastructure project in Mongolia eventually turns into a money laundering operation or a power struggle between elites. An innocent guy was thrown in jail to be the scapegoat.
The saddest part is Mongolia is not a poor country in terms of resources. We have massive mineral wealth. We have a tiny population. In theory this country should have had a chance to become something like a developed East Asian state. Instead, democracy without strong institutions just created a system where corruption became legalized and normalized. We could've been like Rwanda of Africa but instead we got....this.
People are tired. Not of democracy itself, but of watching the same people get richer while ordinary citizens freeze, choke on pollution, and barely afford rent. Not even God himself will be willing to help us. As we spat in his face in the name of Buddhism.