The 1997 presidential and parliamentary elections in Chechnya
By Oleg Lukin, special to Prague Watchdog
Almost immediately after the end of the 1994-1996 war, a leadership struggle began in Chechnya. It was now a struggle between those who only yesterday had been comrades-in-arms. The death of the first President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (ChRI) upset the political balance in the camp of the supporters of independence. The war had pushed to the foreground a number of military men, politicians and public figures who were ready to lay claim to the post of leader of the republic.
The elections for the presidency and parliament of the ChRI were set for January 27, 1997. More than 20 nominations were received for the post of Head of State, but only four people were considered to be genuine candidates: acting President Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, Prime Minister Aslan Maskhadov, Deputy Prime Minister Movladi Udugov and the head of Chechnya’s Customs Committee, the influential field commander Shamil Basayev.
These were the candidates in support of each of whom 10,000 signatures had been submitted to the republic’s Central Electoral Commission by December 23 1996. One of the special features of this election campaign was the fact that it was impossible even for moderate politicians of a pro-Russian orientation to take part in them. Thus, Ruslan Khasbulatov, the former speaker of the Russian parliament which had been dissolved by Boris Yeltsin in the autumn of 1993 was compelled to withdraw his candidacy under pressure from field commanders.
Despite the fact that the presidential candidates were all unanimous on the question of Chechen independence, differences in their vision of the prospects for the republic’s development were already evident. For example, Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev and Movladi Udugov positioned themselves as supporters of the building of a Sharia state that would distance itself from Russia.
Their opponent was Aslan Maskhadov – a talented military leader and moderate, pragmatic politician. The former chief of the general staff of the Chechen army proclaimed as his goal the creation of an independent secular Chechen state. This, in his view, would be facilitated both by the establishment of peaceful, good neighbourly relations with Russia and by the strengthening of mutually beneficial contacts with the West.
Basayev as a participant in the election race
Another candidate for the president’s chair, and also a figure worthy of special note, was Shamil Basayev. Here is an excerpt from an interview Basayev gave for the Lithuanian newspaper Respublika on March 4, 1997:
"The war with Russia will continue. For Russia has behaved in a brutal, inhuman manner in Chechnya. Russian troops have killed 100,000 people, they wrecked everything and then left (...) If it is in our interests, we will talk to any leader of this country. But if Russia will pay us 700 billion US dollars for the damage caused to Chechnya, with that money we can buy half of Russia." (See: A. Savelyev: The Chechen Trap, "Hot Ashes", http://savelev.ru/book/?ch=157).
This would seem to point to an explicit radicalism and a tendency towards continued confrontation with the Kremlin. But the above-mentioned book also contains evidence that is directly to the contrary. Shamil Dzabloyev, leader of the Assembly of National-Democratic and Patriotic Forces, an Ossetian by nationality, spent nearly 8 months from mid-December 1996 as a hostage of the guerrillas. In his memoirs (Confessions of a Hostage) he writes:
"Basayev’s participation in the elections was a very short one, and others took part for him. Then he fell completely silent, and made no aggressive statements. During the eight months I spent in captivity, there was not one aggressive statement from him. The commander of the guerrillas who had seized me said that Basayev had advised him to ‘let that man go.’ I know that there were previous instances when soldiers, doctors, and so on were set free at his suggestion. What does he want? Can it be that he has had a change of heart, or has nothing in common with these guerrillas? The guerrilla commander said: ‘Basayev and I have already parted company.’” (See: A. Savelyev: The Chechen Trap, "Hot Ashes", http://savelev.ru/book/?ch=157).
In my view, the contradiction in the statements and actions of Shamil Basayev is only apparent. For "external consumption" the field commander created for himself the image of a "radical", but actually in 1997 he still remained an ally of Aslan Maskhadov. In this way he sent a kind of signal to the Kremlin - "If you don’t recognize Maskhadov, you will get me as President.” And if such a combination did occur, it proved to be extremely successful. The Russian leadership was forced to put its money on Aslan Maskhadov as the moderate representative of the separatists. The population of Chechnya was probably guided by the same logic. People were weary after two years of war, and figured that Maskhadov was the man who would be able to resolve all the controversial issues at the negotiating table and bring about an improvement in Chechen-Russian relations.
Maskhadov’s convincing victory
The elections took place on January 27 1997 in the presence of Russian and international observers who did not observe any important irregularities. Aslan Maskhadov won a convincing victory, gaining more than 59% of the vote. Shamil Basayev came second, with an impressive 23.5%. Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, who had expected to free himself of the prefix “Acting” on becoming the republic’s legitimate President, suffered a crushing defeat, with only 10% of the vote. And in fact, none of the other participants in the election race, including Movladi Udugov, were able to take even 1% of the vote.
The turn-out in the elections to choose deputies for the Chechen parliament was much lower. Even after two rounds of voting (on January 27 and February 15 1997) only 32 deputies out of 63 had been elected. And at the beginning of March 1997, the Central Election Commission of the ChRI reconsidered its decision and affirmed the election of deputies in 11 more constituencies. This was quite possibly caused by political expediency, as the republic did not have the resources to fund a campaign of parliamentary by-elections, and in its new composition could not begin work in the absence of a quorum (42 people). The largest faction in the legislative body was made up of more than 20 deputies from the pro-Maskhadov Party of National Independence (led by Ruslan Kutayev, assistant to the Chechen President). The second largest faction was the Islamic Order Union, led by Movladi Udugov, with 7 deputies.
Having gained a convincing victory in the presidential elections, Aslan Maskhadov attempted to unite his former political rivals around him. Personally assuming the post of head of government, he appointed the first deputy prime ministers, Shamil Basayev and Movladi Udugov. As for Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, he refused to work with the Maskhadov administration, and soon went over to the opposition. Nevertheless, this was the moment of the greatest consolidation of Chechen society in the entire interwar period of 1997-1999. Aslan Maskhadov had almost no serious political enemies, and the parliament also supported the President’s line. But, as subsequent events were to show, the scale and complexity of the tasks confronting the Chechen leader proved to be incompatible with the real possibilities that were open to him.
It would be impossible to bring about the economic renewal of the republic and to attract foreign investment without a reining-in of the prevailing criminal mayhem and the uncontrolled field commanders. But this required the application of rather strict measures in cases of insubordination, and was fraught with the danger of incipient civil war. Aslan Maskhadov was no longer able to permit an armed resistance led by his former comrades-in-arms. It was perhaps not merely a question of the fear of losing power. The civil war of 1994 between the supporters of Dzhokhar Dudayev and the pro-Russian opposition served as a pretext for the invasion by federal forces. And at the end of the first Chechen war the Kremlin stubbornly refused to recognize the republic’s independence, thus preserving a juridical pretext for the “restoration of the country’s territorial integrity."
"Everything was ready for war"
Nevertheless, Aslan Maskhadov’s attempts to restrain the radical extremists and plain criminals were realized in practice. At the same time, the Kremlin dodged the resolution of similar problems in the neighbouring republics of the North Caucasus, which remained under Russian jurisdiction (the most obvious example being Daghestan). The prevailing situation is described very accurately in his memoirs (My War) by Russian General Gennady Troshev, a veteran of the two Chechen wars:
"Maskhadov fought Wahhabism in Chechnya for more than two years (!). It got to the stage of armed clashes, but not only did Moscow fail to lift a finger to help him, it did nothing to destroy the extremist groupings in the heartlands of its territory. In general it can be said that in the south of Russia all the conditions for the spread of Wahhabism throughout the entire Caucasus were created. Everything was ready for war."
In the prevailing situation Aslan Maskhadov was doomed. A military leader and politician who defended the independence of his country in a bloody war and was ready for long and difficult peace negotiations, he was no longer wanted either by his former comrades-in-arms or by the Kremlin. His overthrow by Chechen radicals was only averted by another worsening of relations with Russia which developed into a new war that was even more protracted and bloody than the previous one.
Oleg Lukin (okent@yandex.ru) is a historian, specialist for military-historical themes.
Translated by David McDuff.
(MD/T)
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