WITH THE yak-tail banners, or tug, of state authority behind him, Khalt-maagiin Battulga read out his presidential decree outlawing the Mongolian People's Party (MPP). Banning political parties is the stuff of tin-pot dictatorships. Yet Mongolia, which broke from the Soviet Union's orbit in a peaceful revolution in 1990, had until now been notably democratic. And the mpp is not just any party, but Mongolia's oldest, the social-democratic successor to the Marxist-Leninist machine that ruled under Soviet tutelage. Last month it celebrated its centenary. Mr Battulga's move on April 18th is especially gobsmacking because the mpp is the ruling party. It runs the government and has a super-majority in the State Great Khural, the parliament. Mr Battulga is from the rival Democratic Party (DP), which looks increasingly distant from the democratic revolution that gave birth to it. Is Mongolian democracy now under threat?
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