Chechens Take Skeptical View of Election Aimed at Ending War

05/10/2003| IslamWeb

Business was slow at the polling station in central Grozny, and the four election commission ladies in the cafeteria had time to sip their tea in leisurely fashion before rushing over to record the occasional ballot. By midday Sunday, they had been troubled by only 170 of the 1,099 electors registered to vote here. Perhaps the electors were put off by the bullet-pockmarked building with its windows bricked up to prevent a rebel attack, or the fact that the main challengers to Moscow's man Akhmad Kadyrov had under various pretexts been barred from the race. The Russian President Vladimir Putin's human rights advisor seemed undaunted however and came close to calling these controversial elections aimed at putting an end to a brutal four-year guerrilla war free and fair. "If people dropped out, it is because they were too weak and could not handle the pressure," Ella Pamfilova told reporters outside the polling station as heavy metal music blared out of speakers to attracts voters. "And perhaps the turnout is low in this particular spot, but I have seen people voting all over Grozny," she added. Reporters and bored machinegun-toting militia outnumbered voters at most polling stations in Grozny. The roads leading into the city were deserted save for official cars. Open-air markets had been shut down for the weekend across the republic for security reasons. There were no initial reports of violence, despite fighters threats to undermine a campaign that they see as Putin's way of getting his man to head the republic and finally remove the legitimacy of guerrilla leader Aslan Maskhadov, legally elected president in 1997. The half a dozen polling stations visited by AFP across Chechnya on Sunday were almost deserted, but poll organisers said they had little doubt that turnout would prove to be massive and that Kadyrov would win the day. "I expect turnout to be nearly 100 percent," Vera Rozko, the election chief in the northern town of Alpatovo, told AFP. "Our goal is to make sure people come out and vote." She was confident of the outcome. "I do not see any other candidate except for Kadyrov," she said. Images of Kadyrov are hard to avoid in Chechnya. Posters of him and Putin shaking hands are plastered all over Grozny and line most of this devastated Caucasus republic's roads. On the official campaign poster listing the candidates, Kadyrov's features are all the more prominent in that he is the only one wearing the traditional Chechen woolen hat. As head of the republic's pro-Russian administration, Kadyrov has other advantages, namely the republic's "adminstrative resources." In Chernokozovo, home to one of Russia's most notorous prisons for suspected Chechen fighters where rights groups have recorded cases of torture and murder, voting took place in the building that serves as headquarters of the pro-Putin United Russia party. Pro-Kadyrov and United Russia slogans were everywhere. Valentina Allyonova, the Chernokozovo election chief, told AFP that 52 of the 100 inmates had been allowed to vote from their cells, their ballots brought to the election centre in a wooden box. "On the whole, people are rooting for Kadyrov, she said. But not everyone agrees. The Russian military, for one, appeared to have turned away from a man who sided with the Chechen fighters in the first 1994-96 war and who has since established his own security force estimated at some 10,000 soldiers -- blamed for rights abuses of its own. One soldier at a Grozny military base openly admitted that Kadyrov was not widely respected in army ranks and that many would have preferred Malik Saidullayev, a wealthy businessman who was barred from the race by the courts. "It's a shame they removed Saidullayev. I think people at this base would have voted for him," said a Russian soldier who identified himself as Sergei. "I think Kadyrov would have been our last choice," the soldier said. **PHOTO CAPTION*** A Chechen police officer reads a campaign newspaper near the polling station in Chechen's second city Gudermes as presidential elections got underway.(AFP/Maxim Marmur)