WASHINGTON, July 3 (UPI) -- In the post-Soviet space from the Caspian to Mongolia, the slippery nexus between energy megabucks and politics has been a source of voter unrest. In many former Communist nations the electorate sees their governments sign lucrative contracts with foreign companies but wait, sometimes for years, for some of the energy revenue to "trickle down."

On July 1 voter resentment boiled over following Mongolia's June 29 parliamentary elections, the fifth since Mongolia abandoned Soviet influence in 1990 and shed communism two years later.

According to General Election Committee spokesman Purevdorjiin Naranba the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party won 47 of the 76 seats in the Great Khural, or parliament, while the Democratic Party gained 26 seats; two smaller parties and an independent candidate won the remaining three places. To gain a parliamentary majority a party needs to win at least 39 seats. The MPRP is the country's former Communist Party, which ruled the country from 1921 to 1990, and again during 2000-2004 as the MPRP. The DP claims that the elections were rigged, referring to the fact that up to two days before the elections all opinion polls showed both parties having a similar number of supporters.

Claiming electoral fraud, on the evening of July 1 a crowd of 80,000 to 10,000 demonstrators in the capital Ulaan Baatar took to the streets, torching the MPRP headquarters and engaging in pitched battles with the police, who used batons, water cannons, tear gas and rubber bullets. According to the state-owned Montsame news agency, five people died during the disturbances and 300 were injured, among them 97 policemen and more than 700 arrested. In response President Nambaryn Enkhbayar, an MPRP member, announced a four-day state of emergency, the first in the history of the country, and banned all television coverage of the unrest except for the state-owned Mongolian National Broadcaster channel. Security was reinforced at Ulaan Baatar's power and heating stations, electrical plants and water stations, sewage plant, petroleum stations, oil and food storage facilities. Public gatherings and the sale of alcohol were also banned.

The U.S. Embassy, which contributed 23 election monitors and had earlier lauded "the Mongolian people for exercising their democratic rights on Election Day," expressed concern, calling "on all political parties to work together in the best interests of the people of Mongolia."