Russia’s Putin hails Chechnya poll

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said on
Monday that the weekend parliamentary election in Chechnya put
the finishing touches to restoring constitutional power to the
rebel region, Interfax news agency said.

Speaking after Chechnya’s election chief said the main
pro-Kremlin party was well in the lead in the poll, Putin said:
“The elections finalize the legal process for restoring
constitutional order in this republic.”

“In Chechnya, an important internal political event has
taken place — election of a legitimate representative organ of
power, that is parliament,” Putin told members of the
government in Moscow.

Moments earlier, in Chechnya’s war-shattered regional
capital of Grozny, Chechnya election chief Ismail Baikhanov
said United Russia, the main pro-Kremlin party, was well in
front.

“There is no doubt that the election to the first
parliament of our republic was legitimate,” Baikhanov told a
news conference. “The clear leader is United Russia … with
61.9 percent of vote.”

He did not say how many votes had been counted.

United Russia’s likely victory will pack the new parliament
with loyalists of regional leader Ramzan Kadyrov — the de
facto ruler of the region despite his official title of deputy
prime minister.

The Communist party was in second place with nearly 12
percent of the vote, while the liberal Union of Right Wing
Forces was third with about 11 percent. Four other parties,
which also contested the 58 seats in the two-chamber
parliament, scored less.

Chechnya has not had a parliament since its last
legislature — which worked during short-lived independence won
in the first war with Russia in 1994-96 — fell apart after
Putin sent troops to retake the region in 1999.

(Additional reporting by Oliver Bullough)