Sherig Toka
His Excellency Sherig Toka | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Prime Minister of the Mongol Uls | |
Acting | |
| Assumed office 28 December, 2023 | |
| Preceded by | Bataariin Orda |
| Second Deputy Prime Minister of the Mongol Uls | |
| Assumed office 22 July, 2022 | |
| Preceded by | Natsagiin Bagabandi |
| Personal details | |
| Born | June 11, 1948 Kaa-Xem, USSR |
| Political party | Central Asian People's Party |
| Other political affiliations | Tuvan Perestroika Party (until 2020) |
Sherig Toka Baig is a Tuvan politician from the Mongol Uls serving as the current acting Prime Minister of the Mongol Uls, leading a demissionary cabinet, having previously served as a Deputy Prime Minister since 2022, and as the leader of the centre-right Central Asian People's Party since 2020.
Early Life
Toka was born in 1948 to a peasant family in Soviet-controlled Tuva. The Toka family had been relatively prosperous nomads, but were forced onto a collective "Kolkhoz" farm. Toka nonetheless managed to pursue an education, studying at a local informal school before winning a scholarship to the Moscow State University.
Political Career
Toka pursued a career as a bureaucrat until the rise to power of the reformist Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev. Toka allied himself with political factions supportive of Gorbachev's Perestroika policies, quickly rising through the ranks of the Soviet bureaucracy to become the Representative of the President in the Tuvan ASSR. In 1996, Toka co-founded the Tuvan Perestroika Party, a liberal and pro-Gorbachev faction that soon gained a plurality in the Great Khural of the Tuvan ASSR, which elected him as its Chairman. Upon the death of Gorbachev, Toka helped to negotiate the annexation of Tuva to the new Mongol Uls. He then, along with several other Turkic politicians in the Khanate, founded the Central Asian People's Party, becoming its leader. After the 2022 Kurultai convention, he became the Second Deputy Prime Minister of the Mongol Uls in a coalition government led by Prime Minister Bataariin Orda, a nominee of the Greater Mongolia Movement (DMN).
Premiership
After his proposed constutional amendments were defeated in a referendum, Prime Minister Orda resigned, and his First Deputy, who had also been a prominent supporter of the amendments, refused the Premiership. Thus, the post fell to Toka, who became the acting Prime Minister of the Mongol Uls. Toka is the first non-Mongol to serve as the Prime Minister of the Khanate, as well as the first Prime Minister who is a member of a party other than the Greater Mongolia Movement.
Political Positions
Toka and his party have both been described as centrist or centre-right. On economic issues, he is considered to take more liberal stances than former Prime Minister Bataariin Orda and the DMN Leader Batu Ganbat, and has been accused of working to "water down" the DMN's more leftist proposals. On social issues, Toka is considered to take moderate to progressive stances, supporting LGBT causes and abortion rights while standing with his party's largely Muslim base on issues such as religious education and de facto tolerance for practises such as no-stun halal slaughter and polygamy.