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Reporters Challenge Chechen Elections Turnouts
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Kadyrov puts his voting paper in a ballot-box
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GROZNY,
October 7 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Despite Russian
assurances that Chechnya's presidential election, won
undisputedly by Kremlin's favorite Ahmad Kadyrov, was free and
fair, serious doubts remain as to the credibility of the claimed high
turnout.
Announcing
final results on Tuesday, October 7, the head of the republic's
electoral commission Abdul-Kerim Arsakhanov said turnout was 87.7
percent, but the figure appeared barely plausible to journalists who
had visited polling stations during the voting, reported Agence
France-Presse (AFP).
At
Kurchaloi in the southeast, Shali (southeast), Argun (east),
Alkhan-Kala (centre) and the capital Grozny, candidates' observers
estimated the turnout at the close of day, with little time remaining
for voting, at between 25 and 35 percent.
Electoral
officials questioned by journalists tended to give much higher turnout
estimates than those observers gave or that might be guessed at by
looking at the electoral lists where voters' names had been ticked
off.
Thus
in Bratskoye, the polling official at station no. 186 said at 10:00 am
that 700 electors out of 2,707 had already cast their ballots, whereas
the number of signatures on the electoral list was clearly closer to
200.
In
the neighboring village of Znamenskoye, an hour later, an official
announced a turnout of 30 percent, but a precise check on the names
showed that just 314 people out of 1,424 had voted, equivalent to just
over 20 percent.
In
a secondary school in Grozny, with just three and a half hours to go
before the close of the poll, 420 people out of 1,530 had voted, or 27
percent.
In
another polling station in the capital, an hour later, 170 voters out
of 1,099, or fewer than 16 percent, had cast ballots.
In
none of these polling stations, nor in others visited by reporters,
did it appear believable that turnout could have risen suddenly to 80
percent by the close.
The
United States criticized the vote as undemocratic, although it stopped
short of saying it would not recognize the results and the
pan-European Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
(OSCE) slammed the lack of choice in the poll.
Boycott
According
to the Chechen Committee for National Salvation rights group, the tens
of thousands of Chechen refugees in the neighboring republic of
Ingushetia almost all boycotted the poll.
"At
the Alina, Satsita and Sputnik tent camps, there were three coaches to
take the refugees to vote, but no one got in," one of the group's
members said.
Another
apparent anomaly concerned supplementary lists on which local
commissions were allowed to add the names of voters from other
constituencies who preferred to vote away from home.
Several
names had been added to these lists, and it was clear that there was
nothing to prevent an elector from voting in several different places.
Unofficial
observers from the Moscow Helsinki Group on human rights denounced
more serious irregularities during the press conference by the
electoral commission.
Several
polling stations in the Shali region remained open after the official
closing time of 8:00 pm, they said.
And
the voting slips, instead of being counted on the spot by electoral
officials, were transported to the local administrative building to be
counted by town officials.
Media
reports said last month that the Kremlin had rigged the race for
the sake of Kadyrov after four front-runners had mysteriously
withdrawn or been ejected from Chechnya's troubled election, leaving
Kadyrov as the almost certain winner.
Moscow's
key objective was to sideline Chechen leader Aslan Maskhadov, who was
elected in Chechnya's only free presidential polls, in 1997.
Maskhadov
was elected to a five-year term in 1997 after the republic won de
facto independence from Russia following a brutal 1994-96 war.
'Harsher
Crackdown'
For
his part, Kadyrov vowed on Tuesday to crack down ruthlessly on Chechen
fighters.
"If
I am head of the republic, that means my people must be
everywhere," he said in an interview published in the Kommersant
daily, adding that the towns and districts of the mountainous
territory must not be ruled by different clans.
"From
now on I am going to be even harsher. It can't be otherwise. They have
to submit to the president," 52-year-old Kadyrov said.
He
added that the Chechen interior ministry forces were "not capable
today" of resolving the conflict in Chechnya alone and that the
presence of Russian troops was still required.
"When
I judge that we can control the situation, I will ask the president of
the Russian Federation to withdraw troops," he added.
According
to figures of the pro-Russian administration cited Tuesday by the
business daily Vedomosti, the Chechen interior ministry has 12,000 men
under arms and Kadyrov's personal security guard another 4,500 men.
After
the vote, Kadyrov reaffirmed his refusal to hold talks with Maskhadov
and predicted that Chechen fighters supporters would "switch
sides in two or three weeks or a month".
During
the first war between Russian troops and Chechen fighters in the
1990s, Kadyrov fought with the fighters. Appointed a mufti in 1995, he
once called for jihad against Russia.
But
when Russia launched the second war against Chechen fighters in
October 1999, Kadyrov threw his lot in with Moscow.
Instead
of convincing the fighters to lay down their arms, Kadyrov found
himself branded a traitor and has been ducking assassination attempts
ever since.
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