Blair's fan in Mongolia

Enkhbayar celebrates his victory

By BBC News Online's Emma Batha

Mongolia's new prime minister in waiting is a big Tony Blair fan, who knows all about spin, image-makers and the "Third Way".

Indeed, Nambariin Enkhbayar, a charismatic Anglophile and devout Buddhist, proudly claims to have modelled himself on the British leader.

People in the world should understand that we are not communist monsters

Nambariin Enkhbayar

Mr Enkhbayar heads the former communist Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party or MPRP, which swept to power in Sunday's polls.

But he is certainly no dour Soviet-style apparatchik.

He wears sharp blue suits, mixes with pop groups, gives good sound bites and even has his own spin doctor - a liaison consultant from a British firm.

Like the British prime minister, Mr Enkhbayar is keen to appear young and hip. When Mr Blair first came to power, he invited top UK band Oasis to Downing Street.

Mongolia is home to 2.4 million people

Mr Enkhbayar went one better, dancing on stage with all-girl group Lipstick, Mongolia's answer to the Spice Girls.

Just as Mr Blair overhauled the cloth cap image of Labour, so the charismatic Mr Enkhbayar is on a mission to revamp the party that has ruled Mongolia for most of the last seven decades.

When he learnt the MPRP had won the elections he was swift to distance himself from his predecessors.

"People in the world should understand that we are not communist monsters," he declared.

Anglophile

A graduate from Moscow's prestigious Institute of Literature, he is fluent in English and Russian and a regular visitor to Britain.

He studied English literature for a year at Leeds University in Britain in 1986 and has translated a number of books into Mongolian, including Dickens, Woolf and Huxley.

Enkhbayar: Keen on the Third Way

Mr Enkhbayar joined the MPRP in the mid 1980s when it ran Mongolia as a satellite of the Soviet Union.

He served as Minister of Culture after the party won Mongolia's first democratic elections in 1990, and began his drive to modernise the party after it was swept from power in 1996.

Image

The Mongolian leader says he was inspired by Mr Blair's efforts to revamp Labour, and Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's overhaul of the Social Democrats in Germany.

Tony Blair: Criticised for his use of spin doctors

"I remember hearing Mr Blair say that Old Labour was afraid of change," he says. "We do not fear change, but we must be masters of change."

His party is understood to have sent image-makers to Italy, France, Germany and Britain to pick up tips.

Mr Enkhbayar insists the MPRP is now "centre-left". And like Mr Blair, he is determined to take his country along the "Third Way".

This appears to mean he will continue with the government's programme of privatising state industries, while providing greater social support to alleviate spiralling poverty.

Where the money will come from he has not made clear.

Attack

Mr Enkhbayar has been a strong leader in opposition.

But analysts warn that, once in power, he is likely to face resistance from traditional elements within the party.

It is a problem Mr Blair is becoming all too familiar with.

This week, one of his former supporters launched a scathing attack, painting the prime minister as a control freak who uses spin doctors to rubbish colleagues.

As Mr Blair licks his wounds, perhaps he will take heart that he at least has his admirers in Mongolia.