The Hindu : Moscow-backed leader wins Chechnya poll

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Oct 07, 2003

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International

Moscow-backed leader wins Chechnya poll

By Vladimir Radyuhin

MOSCOW OCT. 6. Chechnya's Moscow-appointed leader has swept to victory in a controversial presidential poll in the war-devastated republic after the Kremlin cleared the field from his strong rivals.

The head of the interim administration in Chechnya, Akhmad Kadyrov, has won 81 per cent of the votes in Sunday's elections of President contested by seven candidates. Three other candidates, who enjoyed greater popularity than Mr. Kadyrov, according to pre-election surveys, had been either disqualified or persuaded by the Kremlin to pull out of the race.

The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, stressed the heavy turnout in Chechnya's election, which amounted to nearly 87 per cent of the 560,000 eligible voters, as indication of "people's hopes for peace and positive changes in their lives."

Mr. Putin has thrown his support behind Mr. Kadyrov as the man who may be able to bring peace to Chechnya. The former mufti had fought with the rebels against Russian forces in the first Chechen campaign in 1994-1996, but changed sides after Russia launched a second attempt to crush separatism in Chechnya in 1999 and was appointed interim head of the local administration in 2000. The choice of Mr. Kadyrov has provoked a split in the Kremlin, with some aides to the Russian President, voicing fears that the practically uncontested elections in Chechnya were fraught with a new destabilisation. A website close to the head of Mr. Putin's administration, Alexander Voloshin, compared Sunday's election with an uncontested election of a pro-Moscow administrator, Doku Zavgayev, in Chechnya in 1995, which was followed by a new flareup of fighting and an ignominious withdrawal of Russian forces from the region in 1996.

Mr. Putin admitted that the election would not automatically bring peace to Chechnya, but reiterated his commitment to pursuing a political settlement in the region.

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