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Author Topic: Chechen parliamentary elections today (Sunday)
Hephaestion
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posted 27 November 2005 07:59 AM      Profile for Hephaestion   Author's Homepage        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
(Nazran) Residents of Chechnya, the dysfunctional Caucasus republic that has plagued Kremlin politicians since the Soviet collapse, began voting Sunday in the latest of a series of elections that are part of efforts to bring stability and peace.

Some 350 candidates are running for 58 seats in the two-chamber regional legislature.

Despite continuing corruption, squalor, crime, Islamic extremism and persistent skirmishes with rebel holdouts, Kremlin officials have repeatedly insisted that the oil-rich, Muslim region is on the road to recovery and stability.

As evidence, they point to the three public votes -- two presidential, one referendum -- the republic has held since March 2003. All the exercises were criticized as flawed at best, rigged at worst. Authorities have staged a rock concert, opened a water amusement park and promoted Grozny's professional soccer team. Boxer Mike Tyson opened a boxing tournament here in September.

But many local residents remain resentful and doubt the vote will bring any positive changes.

Marina Makhchiyeva, 59-year old retiree who was selling onion, cigarettes and dried fish near a polling station in the village of Assinovskaya, some 28 miles west of the capital Grozny, said she plans to cast her ballot later in the day, but added: "Nothing is going to change. This is Chechnya, nothing ever changes."

[...]

An estimated 100,000 civilians, soldiers and rebels have ¹Äî official statistics have not been published ¹Äî have died in two wars in Chechnya since federal troops first swept into the region in 1994 to crush its separatist bid.

[...]

Observers and analysts, however, say the vote is the latest attempt by the Kremlin to make the situation look brighter than it is.

"Russia is trying to create the picture that in Chechnya everything is fine," Yulia Latynina, a commentator who has written extensively on the region, said on Ekho Moskvy radio.

[...]

Alkhanov was elected in August 2004 to replace the assassinated Akhmad Kadyrov, who was killed in a bomb blast that May, seven months after his own election. Neither election -- nor the March 2003 constitutional referendum that cemented Chechnya's status as part of Russia -- was considered free or fair.

Many observers suspect the parliament will be nothing more than a rubber-stamp legislature for the region's real ruler -- Akhmad Kadyrov's son Ramzan.

[ 27 November 2005: Message edited by: Hephaestion ]


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