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Moscow Times
August 31, 2004
Editorial
Between a Rock and a Hard Place

As expected, the Kremlin's candidate, Alu Alkhanov, won Sunday's Chechen presidential election in a landslide. According to preliminary results released Monday, Alkhanov took 73.5 percent of the vote.

Given President Vladimir Putin's backing, Alkhanov's victory is not in doubt despite an opponent's charges of vote rigging, and other alleged violations reported in the media.

The big question, however, is whether Alkhanov will be able to run the war-ravaged region at least as well as his predecessor, the late Akhmad Kadyrov.

Alkhanov obviously lacks Kadyrov's charisma and influence. Kadyrov had served as Chechnya's chief mufti during the republic's de facto independence in the mid-1990s, and fought against federal troops before switching camps to lead the region's pro-Moscow government. This experience gave Kadyrov leverage over both sides in the conflict, which he used to lure a number of rebel commanders over to the federal side and to cut deals with the Kremlin.

But Alkhanov has no real power base of his own. He has little choice but to rely on key figures in Kadyrov's clan, including the slain president's son Ramzan Kadyrov, who heads the powerful presidential security service. The Kremlin owes Alkhanov no favors, as it owed Akhmad Kadyrov for becoming the first rebel leader to side with Moscow. He also has little influence over Chechen rebel leaders, and therefore stands little chance of convincing them to surrender their weapons, as Akhmad Kadyrov was able to do.

The rebels, who assassinated Kadyrov in May, have vowed to kill Alkhanov. In response, Alkhanov has adopted a tough line, declaring that the only way for rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov to rejoin society is for him to lay down his arms and ask for forgiveness.

The next few months will determine whether Alkhanov can parlay his presidential post into real political power in Chechnya. To do so, he will have to marginalize powerful patrons and convince the federal government to keep subsidies flowing while expanding the share of revenue from Chechen oil sales that enters the regional budget. He will also have to crack down on alleged widespread abuses committed against civilians by government forces.

Bringing Ramzan Kadyrov -- who has up to 5,000 loyal fighters under his command and who harbors presidential ambitions of his own -- under control may well prove impossible. And that's just one of the challenges facing the new Chechen president. If Alkhanov fails, the situation in Chechnya may deteriorate to the point that the Kremlin's spin doctors can no longer conjure an image of stability -- even on state television.

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