Russia: The Kremlin hailed its candidate as the winner of Chechnya's controversial presidential elections yesterday, but separatist rebels immediately vowed to derail Moscow's plans to pacify the shattered region.
Mr Akhmad Kadyrov won more than 80 per cent of Sunday's vote on a turnout of 86 per cent, election officials said, citing preliminary figures.
Rights groups and reporters in the republic immediately poured scorn on the numbers, saying they seemed exaggerated.
The nearest rival to Mr Kadyrov, who was a rebel leader before crossing to the Kremlin side, won only 6 per cent of votes. All Mr Kadyrov's main competitors either withdrew or were excluded from the election before Sunday.
"I feel a huge responsibility before those who voted for me," Mr Kadyrov said. "We have lots to do, obviously, and it must be done with the help of the people."
President Vladimir Putin quickly congratulated Mr Kadyrov, who he travelled with on an official visit to the US last month, putting the Kremlin seal on his candidacy.
"The high turnout speaks for itself, showing that people in Chechnya hope for a better life and for positive changes in the republic," he said.
He also urged officials to work quickly on plans for parliamentary elections in Chechnya, for devolving a high degree of autonomy to the region, and for paying compensation to people whose homes have been damaged in almost a decade of war.
Russia insists that Sunday's election was free and fair, but leading democracy watchdogs like the Council of Europe and the Organisation for Co-operation in Europe refused to send observers to the poll because of safety and legitimacy fears.
"It is regrettable that in the run-up to the elections there was a lack of real pluralism among candidates," OFCE chairman Mr Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said yesterday.
"The absence of independent media, as well as a continued climate of violence, gives reasons for concern," said the Dutchman, who is his country's Foreign Minister and is set to become NATO's secretary general in December.
The international community also expressed concern over a referendum in March that Moscow said proved the desire of Chechens to remain part of the Russian Federation. Rebels called the vote a sham, and intensified attacks in its wake, killing about 150 people in suicide attacks in southern Russia and Moscow.
Thousands of soldiers and civilians have died since President Boris Yeltsin sent troops into Chechnya in 1994 to crush its drive for independence from Moscow.
They suffered an ignominious defeat at guerrilla hands, but returned to the region in 1999 in an operation that ex-KGB agent Mr Putin vehemently supported.
His inability to crush the rebels is the most obvious failure of his presidency, and he wants to show progress before facing re-election in March.
Despite appeals from Russian and Western rights groups, Mr Putin has made little public effort to rein in troops that Chechnya's residents regularly accuse of kidnap, rape and murder.
And he has successfully blunted official criticism of his Chechnya campaign by linking the rebels to international terror groups like al-Qaeda.
"For us the resolution of the problem of Chechnya is about preserving the territorial integrity of the country," Mr Putin told the New York Times in an interview published yesterday. "And for all of us, including you, it is about having a strong barrier against fundamentalism in this part of Europe."
Chechnya's rebels, whose separatist message has gained a stronger Islamic element in recent years, deny any link to foreign terror networks.
Shamil Basayev, a Chechen field commander who is probably Russia's most wanted man, said yesterday that the rebels had gleaned more than $250,000 from money sent to Chechnya to fund Sunday's election.
He also said money intended for the March referendum had financed an explosion at a Moscow concert in July, when two women blew up themselves and 13 other people.
Mr Aslan Maskhadov, elected Chechnya's president in 1997 but now on the run from Russian forces, told the rebel's kavkavcenter.com website that Sunday's vote was a farce that would change nothing in Chechnya.