ULAN BATOR (AFP) - – Mongolia's parliament on Wednesday approved the resignation of Prime Minister Sanjaa Bayar, who was forced to step down due to ill health, state television reported.
The 53-year-old Bayar, who was seen as an economic reformer when he first became premier of the poor but resource-rich Asian nation in November 2007, said he wished he could have seen out his term.
"I regret that I couldn't finish what I planned to do," he told lawmakers, according to images of the parliamentary session broadcast live on state television. "The government still has a lot of work to do."
Of the 63 MPs present at the session, 57 of them, or 90.5 percent, voted to approve his resignation.
Health Minister Sambuu Lambaa, cited by local media, said last month that Bayar was suffering from hepatitis C, which causes liver problems, and had sought treatment in South Korea.
Bayar took office after assuming the leadership of the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (MPRP), which ruled the country for decades as a one-party communist state until a peaceful move to multi-party politics in the 1990s.
Lawmakers again voted to keep him in his post in September 2008, two months after riots erupted in the capital Ulan Bator over a disputed June parliamentary election victory by the MPRP. Five people were killed.
The MPRP still controls the 76-seat parliament, but Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj of the opposition Democratic Party won the presidency in May, creating a virtual coalition government.
The MPRP later Wednesday nominated current Foreign Minister Sukhbaatar Batbold to replace Bayar, state media reported. The nomination of Batbold, who was educated in Moscow and London, was to be submitted to lawmakers for a vote.
First deputy prime minister Altanhuyag Norov will carry out Bayar's duties in the interim.
Mongolia shook off communist rule in 1990 without a shot being fired, and the first democratic elections were held in 1992.
The landlocked country, which is wedged between China and Russia, has struggled to develop a sustainable economy since turning to capitalism two decades ago.
But its rich deposits of copper, gold, uranium, silver and oil have caught the eye of foreign investors.
Three weeks ago, the government sealed a multi-billion-dollar deal with Canada's Ivanhoe Mines and Anglo-Australian miner Rio Tinto to develop one of the world's richest copper deposits, after years of negotiations.