In April 2025, an MP told parliament’s justice committee that Mongolia’s paid protesters are well known, and proposed taxing them. The comment was sarcasm, but it named what much of Ulaanbaatar already believed. The country, he said, had moved from tugrik billionaires born of the state to billionaires born of protest.
On October 1, 2026, drivers left cars in hours-long fuel queues and marched on the main square in Ulaanbaatar. None of it has reached French proportions, the tens of thousands clashing with police in Paris this month.