Chechens vote tomorrow in elections that will be anything but free and fair,and are overshadowed by terrorism, writes Daniel McLaughlin
Chechnya goes to the polls to elect a new president tomorrow, after a week in which its separatist rebels intensified their attacks on Russian troops and were suspected of blowing up an airliner for the first time in their decade-long struggle with Moscow.
More than 50 guerrillas and 50 soldiers were killed in a brazen rebel raid last weekend on the regional capital, Grozny, as thousands of servicemen flooded into Chechnya ahead of a vote to find a replacement for Mr Akhmad Kadyrov, who was killed in a bomb attack in May. Then on Tuesday night, two airliners fell from the sky over southern Russia within minutes of each other. Traces of explosive were found in the wreckage of one of the planes and Chechen women on board the flight came under immediate suspicion.
Moderate separatists denied any link to the attack, but a radical Arab website carried a claim of responsibility from a group declaring solidarity with the Chechen struggle.
If Chechens were responsible for the plane crashes, which killed 89 people, then they have adopted a terrifying new tactic to go along with the ambushes that kill soldiers every day in Chechnya and occasional suicide bombings in the republic and Moscow.
The week's events confront President Vladimir Putin with the absurdity of his claim to have started a substantive peace process in Chechnya and to have all but crushed its guerrilla movement, which denies his claim that it has links to al-Qaeda.
Few people believe tomorrow's vote will be free or fair or that anyone other than Mr Putin's candidate - Chechnya's Interior Minister Mr Alu Alkhanov - has a chance of succeeding Mr Kadyrov, who was assassinated at a ceremony which was broadcast on live television. That attack brought humiliation for Mr Putin, who had hoped the former guerrilla would have the kudos to unite Chechnya's clans and the steel to crush rebel resistance.
Mr Kadyrov's seven months in power changed little in a republic that fought free of Moscow's rule in a 1994-96 war and whose rebels have proved impossible to pacify since Mr Putin sent troops back in five years ago.
If anything, the well-documented rights abuses by Russian troops and their local allies have got even worse, with the powerful militia force of Mr Kadyrov's thuggish young son, Ramzan, particularly culpable. His legion of masked fighters, most of them former rebels, often clash with Russian soldiers and members of the FSB domestic security service in a struggle for control over Chechnya, where good money is made from oil refining, arms smuggling and kidnapping for ransom.
It is entirely possible that Mr Alkhanov, who is a bland character commanding little personal loyalty in Chechnya, will simply serve as the public face of a regime which is actually run by Ramzan Kadyrov and his rapacious private army.
The Kremlin's hope that Ramzan's father would co-opt enough of his former rebel comrades to fatally undermine the rebel movement foundered among a fiercely proud people who have periodically rebelled against Russian rule for 150 years.
It is now unclear what route remains open to Mr Putin in Chechnya, save for more of the same military action which has left Grozny in ruins, sent thousands of teenage Russian conscripts to their deaths and driven tens of thousands of people into neighbouring regions to seek refuge.
He has vowed never to negotiate with moderate rebel leader Mr Aslan Maskhadov and is left to contrive the election of men like Mr Alkhanov, who is seen by most Chechens as Moscow's puppet.
"All elections that have ever been held in Chechnya have been illegitimate," said Mr Sergei Kovalyov, a former dissident and human rights advocate. "How can people express their right to a vote when all the roads are blocked off by military posts and free movement is all but curtailed?"
Some 17,000 policemen and soldiers will try to provide security across Chechnya tomorrow. They are more edgy than ever after last week's guerrilla raid, which echoed a lightning attack in June on the capital of Ingushetia, the region next to Chechnya, which saw rebels seize the city for a few hours and kill more than 100 servicemen.
That raised the spectre of conflict bleeding into the rest of the North Caucasus, where guns are plentiful and cheap and where high unemployment and poverty feed disaffection with Moscow.
The security services said foreign fighters took part in the raid on Ingushetia and insist the use of suicide bombers - especially women - is evidence of the growing influence of Arab extremists on what was once a purely separatist struggle. The rebels say it is not Islamic fervour but Russian brutality and privation that motivates the suicide attackers.
Kidnapping is rife, nearly three-quarters of Chechnya's one million residents are without work and electricity and telephone services are sporadic. Much of the money allocated by Moscow for rebuilding work disappears before it can be put to use. Mr Alkhanov, devoid of a real mandate or genuine credibility, will be able to do little about any of this.
Powerful businessman Mr Malik Saidullayev, whom Moscow excluded from the election race on a technicality, sees nothing good coming from tomorrow's vote. "They are trying to create a new Kadyrov. They have not learned any lessons from what happened," he said. "There will be the same instability there is now."
Rebel envoy Mr Akhmed Zakayev said in a recent statement: "Neither elections nor Russia's current policies in Chechnya will bring the desired results. Like last time, the authorities will be signing the death warrant of the man they pick."