A woman leaves the tent used as a polling station after casting her vote

GROZNY, March 23 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Chechens voted Sunday, March 23, on a new constitution that Moscow hopes will lay to rest the small southern republic's independence hopes and put an end to Europe's bloodiest civil conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people in the past decade.

Some 530,000 Chechens are eligible to vote in the referendum, which asks them to approve a new constitution as well as presidential elections by year's end and parliamentary elections three months later, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

"There is just a tiny hope that this will change something for the better," said Malika, 43, who voted to approve the constitution.

Malika was one of the mainly women voters to turn out at the polling station set up in a kindergarten in Grozny, Chechnya's devastated capital.

The vote needs a turnout of at least 50 percent to be considered valid.

"They have already done a lot, they closed down checkpoints and promised to compensate people for their destroyed homes. If we can just do something, that's already a good thing," she said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has portrayed the referendum as a sure step towards peace, saying he will grant Chechens a degree of autonomy if they accept their republic's status as an inalienable part of the Russian Federation and vow to give up their hopes of independence.

Yet critics say that the vote will be pointless in a republic still ravaged by war and have urged Putin to first open peace talks with rebels.

The vote was, in addition, rejected by the fighters’ leader Aslan Maskhadov, who was elected president of Chechnya at the end of the first war.

Yet Akhmad Kadyrov, head of Chechnya's pro-Moscow administration and a likely leading candidate should the presidential vote go ahead, said Saturday, March 22, he was certain that the "referendum will be a success."

Some 30,000 Russian troops permanently stationed in Chechnya were also due to vote, in an apparent bid to ensure success for a poll that has met with widespread popular distrust.

Some 30 international observers, from the pan-European OSCE security body as well as representatives from Arab organisations and former Soviet republics, and 120 reporters were set to monitor the poll, but were only granted brief access to the area for security reasons.

Polling stations teemed with police checking the bags of voters and federal troops patrolled roadways amid fears that Chechen fighters could launch attacks to disrupt the controversial vote.

Moscow has been hard pressed to give the impression of stability and security in Chechnya, where battles between federal troops and Chechen fighters continue to break out almost daily.

The small mountainous republic has been ravaged by conflict since 1994, with just three years of relative peace after the first war between Russian forces and Chechen fighters ended in August 1996 and the second broke out in October 1999.

At least 100,000 civilians and 10,000 Russian troops are estimated to have been killed in both wars, but human rights groups have said the real numbers could be much higher.