Post-communist generation hopes for new era of democracy in Mongolia

Tsenguun Saruulsaikhan, a young and newly minted member of Mongolia's parliament, is unhappy with below-cost electricity rates that she says show her country has yet to fully shake off its socialist past.

Most of Mongolia's power plants date from the Soviet era and outages are common in some areas. Heavy smog envelops the capital Ulaanbaatar in the winter because many people still burn coal to heat their homes.

It's stuck in how it was like 40, 50 years ago, said Tsenguun, part of a rising generation of leaders who are puzzling out their country's future after three decades of democracy. And that's the reason why we need to change it.

Democracy in Mongolia is in a transition phase, said Tsenguun, who at 27 is the youngest member of a new parliament sworn in this week. We are trying to figure out what democracy actually means, she said in a recent interview.

Discontented voters deliver a ruling party setback

Mongolia became a democracy in the early 1990s after six decades of one-pa