CHECHNYA: As Chechnya's new president vowed yesterday to bring peace to the republic and crush its separatist rebels, human rights groups called his election victory a sham that would cause more violence.
Maj-Gen Alu Alkhanov won 73.4 per cent of Sunday's vote to find a successor to Akhmad Kadyrov, who was blown up in May after only seven months in power. Maj-Gen Alu Alkhanov is entrusted by the Kremlin to bring Chechnya to heel after almost a decade of war.
"I consider it my duty before the Chechen people to create a decent standard of living, allowing them to work and earn a decent wage by peaceful means, and solve the problem of security for the population," Maj-Gen Alkhanov said.
"The Chechen people have again shown their wisdom and political maturity, taking part in an election despite the efforts of bandits to deceive them."
Election officials claimed that more than 85 per cent of registered voters cast their ballots amid heavy security after rebels killed more than 50 servicemen in raids last week and were blamed for blowing up two airliners over Russia last Tuesday.
However, most reports from Chechnya spoke of voting irregularities and palpable fear hanging over deserted streets.
"On Sunday, Grozny [the Chechen capital\] offered a surreal image: half-destroyed houses under a scorching sun, and not a soul in the streets," the Izvestia newspaper wrote.
A reporter for the Kommersant daily said he had cast his ballot in four polling stations without any difficulty.
Maj-Gen Alkhanov's six opponents in the election were all but invisible compared to the Kremlin-backed candidate, whose image was ubiquitous on local television and posters across Chechnya, with Russian President Mr Vladimir Putin usually featuring alongside.
"The brutal Chechnya conflict is crying out for a political solution", said Mr Aaron Rhodes, executive director of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights.
"Yet manipulating democracy to produce a predetermined outcome is neither fair nor a solution. Rather it will serve to entrench both sides in this unwinnable war of attrition in which civilians continue to be the primary victims."
Rebels and Russian soldiers are accused of kidnapping, torturing and murdering civilians with impunity in a war that Mr Putin insists represents a front in the US-led "war on terror".
The guerrillas deny his claim that they receive funding from al-Qaeda, but the brutality of Russian troops and their local allies, coupled with crippling poverty, have made Chechnya an increasingly fertile recruiting ground for radical Islamic groups.
Maj-Gen Alkhanov appealed to rebels "who had committed no serious crimes" to lay down their arms and return to civilian life, but pledged never to seek a compromise with Mr Aslan Maskhadov, a relatively moderate guerrilla leader who has denounced attacks on civilians.
"I have never said it was necessary to hold talks with Maskhadov," Maj-Gen Alkhanov said. "I say that Maskhadov has only one chance: to ask for forgiveness from his own people - the ones he went to war against - and to give himself up to a court of law."
The Netherlands, which holds the EU presidency, said it regretted the absence of international observers from Sunday's vote, but urged Russia to seek a negotiated end to a conflict that has claimed thousands of lives.
Dutch Foreign Minister Mr Ben Bot urged Maj-Gen Alkhanov to "make renewed efforts" to achieve a genuine political settlement. "Bot called once more on the Russian authorities to intensify co-operation with international organisations and with international and non-governmental humanitarian organisations as part of these renewed efforts," the Netherlands said in a statement.
Meanwhile investigators are studying the backgrounds of two Chechen women who are suspected of carrying the explosives that blew two airliners out of the sky over southern Russia last week, killing 90 people.
Izvestia newspaper said they were friends who lived together in Grozny, but disappeared shortly before the bombings, and both had brothers who died at the hands of Russian troops.
However their families said their passports must have been stolen and used by someone else on the flights.