The chairman of the Moscow Helsinki
Group, Lyudmila Alexeyeva, criticised the absence of serious rivals
to a Kremlin-backed candidate.
The group is also seriously critical over enforced censorship and a media law restricting adverse
comment
.
Referring to media laws
concerning election coverage, Alexeyeva said, only "after the
election ...
will the public be able to read that the election was a
farce organised at the highest level".
Another of the group's officials
, Tatyana Lokshina, said
Chechen voters "had harboured hopes of an end to the military
round-ups and of a president other than (Akhmad) Kadyrov" until two key
candidates fell out of the race.
Brutal war
Hopes vanished when a local court disqualified businessman Malik
Saidullayev on 11 September, just a few hours after Aslambek
Aslakhanov, the republic's deputy in the State Duma
, withdrew to accept an advisory role offered by Russian
President Vladimir Putin.
|
"Only after the election... will the public be able to read that the election was a
farce organised at the highest level"
Lyudmila Alexeyeva,
The Moscow Helsinki Group |
"Today in Chechnya people are more afraid of Kadyrov's men than
of the federal troops," Lokshina said.
The Kremlin has presented the forthcoming election as part of a
political process towards a settlement in Chechnya, arguing the
military phase has been won.
Kadyrov, a former mufti who initially backed the separatist
insurgency in the early 1990s, has headed the pro-Russian
administration in Chechnya since the start of the present conflict
almost four years ago.
Russia's brutal war on Chechnya has cost the country up to ten thousand soldiers, and has killed tens of thousands of Chechen civilians.