Moscow’s man sweeps to Chechen election victory

THE Kremlin’s candidate Akhmad Kadyrov won a landslide victory in Chechnya’s presidential election but few voters believed he would bring a rapid end to the fighting that has devastated their republic.

Kadyrov won 81.1% of the vote cast in Sunday’s poll on a turnout of 83.46%, the head of the republic’s electoral commission Abdul-Kerim Arsakhanov said yesterday after 77% of the ballots had been counted.

He said the vote had been “absolutely free: no pressure was put on people to vote one way or the other.”