Kremlin's man wins Chechen election

The Kremlin’s favoured candidate for president of war-battered Chechnya overwhelmingly won an election that opponents claimed was riddled with fraud, Russian news agencies reported today.

With 84% of the vote counted, Maj Gen Alu Alkhanov, Chechnya’s top policeman, had received nearly 75% of the votes.

Although the Kremlin portrayed the voting as a step towards stability, violence shadowed yesterday’s balloting. A man blew himself up near a polling station after trying to enter it carrying a suspicious package, officials said.

Fears of terrorism were also stoked by the crashes of two Russian passenger jets five days before the election. Officials said traces of explosives were found in the wreckage.

Seven candidates battled to replace the previous Kremlin-backed Chechen president, Akhmad Kadyrov, who was assassinated in May. But Alkhanov was seen as the Kremlin’s clear choice and opponents claimed the voting was rigged.

Candidate Abdullah Bugayev said he had formally complained to election officials after seeing several breaches, including an Alkhanov campaign worker who ordered people to vote for him at a polling station. A representative of Movsur Khamidov, another candidate, said he found ballot boxes at a polling station stuffed shortly after the station opened.

The election was part of the Kremlin’s strategy to try to undermine support for separatist rebels who have been fighting Russian forces for nearly five years by inducing a sense of civil order in the republic.

An election last October based on that strategy brought Akhmad Kadyrov to power, but Kadyrov was killed in a bomb blast in Grozny, the Chechen capital, in May. Fighting, violent crime and abductions have continued unabated.

At one polling station in Grozny, a man was killed in an explosion after he approached with a suspicious package. When guards asked to see the package, “he began to run. It blew up. He died”, elections commission head Abdul-Kerim Arsakhanov said on Russian NTV television.

Election officials reported a turnout of around 80%, Russian news agencies said. However, little activity was seen at some polling stations.

Police and soldiers were out in force, in cars or manning checkpoints. Pedestrians were scarce on Grozny’s streets, many of which are lined with war-shattered apartment buildings with collapsed floors and large holes in their facades.

Russian forces have been unable to wipe out Chechen rebels in two wars over the past decade and the Kremlin, refusing to negotiate, has focused on trying to restore civil society in the republic.

However, recent weeks indicate that the separatists remain determined in their fight. On August 21, 30 people were reported killed in a night of attacks on police stations and patrols in Grozny.