The victory of Moscow’s favored candidate Alu Alkhanov in Sunday’s Chechen presidential election is being questioned because of voting irregularities. It is alleged that the 85 percent turnout is highly suspect since many voting stations received no voters at all. However, the real problem with this election came not at the ballot box but in the selection of candidates when Malik Saidullayev, a popular entrepreneur, was banned from standing on the technical grounds that his passport was not in order.
This was clearly an example of manipulation designed to rid the race of the one candidate who might have successfully challenged Alkhanov. The authorities in Moscow preferred to hold a tainted election rather than risk electoral humiliation. In normal circumstances this result should be greeted with disdain. These are not, however, normal circumstances and this result, however flawed, may in the long run be the best for the Chechen people.
It is important to remember that the current struggle in Chechnya is President Vladimir Putin’s war. One of the first things that he did on assuming power as Yeltsin’s premier in 1999 was to restart a conflict in which, like so many Russian leaders before him, he believed that he could crush Chechen rebels militarily. Initially Washington disapproved. However after Sept. 11, by linking the Chechen insurgents with Al-Qaeda’s depravities, Putin won tacit approval from the United States to do what he felt that he had to do.
Since Putin resumed the campaign, Moscow’s military has cotinued to take heavy casualties though their extent has been hidden from the Russian people, in much the same way as the rising casualty toll in Afghanistan was concealed twenty years ago.
Alkhanov’s victory on Sunday means that the Russian policy can continue without deviation. For Putin the course is toward total military victory. For those who know Chechnya and its history, the direction is more likely to be toward a long and painful defeat. Much of Chechnya is in ruins. Those Chechen leaders who support the new president are more interested in keeping power away from their fellow Chechen leaders who are in rebellion than in maintaining links with Moscow. This is not a black-and-white conflict. Rebel groups have changed sides and to attack each other. The Russians may be the common enemy but some leaders are happy to play Moscow’s men off against their tribal rivals.
Such a mix of different allegiances in a land bristling with weapons was hardly going to provide a platform for free and fair elections. From the Kremlin’s point of view, allowing a popular rival to run against its chosen candidate would introduce yet another confusing variable into an already chaotic situation. The election, by fair means or foul, of Alkhanov at least provides Russian-dominated Chechnya with a leader around whom the currents of the controversy can surge. Three of the new man’s predecessors have been assassinated and whatever Alkhanov’s political credentials, his personal bravery cannot be questioned.
