An electoral farce By Ramzan Akhmadov
CHECHNYA – Elections for the next President of the Russian Federation began in Chechnya today, as they did all over Russia. Many observers call what is taking place a farce – a well-mounted show with an outcome that was predetermined beforehand. No one is in any doubt that the post of president will be filled by Vladimir Putin’s official “successor”, Dmitry Medvedev.
During the last few days the local television channels have been filled with appeals to voters to come to the polls and vote for the worthiest candidate. With importunate insistence, Chechens have been told this is Dmitry Medvedev, as only he can continued President Putin’s policies.
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Although the authorities continually demonstrate their loyalty to the Kremlin, most Chechens take an extremely negative view of Vladimir Putin. After all, it is his name that in most people’s minds is associated with the Russian army’s second Chechen military campaign which began in 1999, causing the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians, and leaving virtually the entire republic in ruins.
69-year-old Chechen resident Makhmud Bakayev told Prague Watchdog’s correspondent: "I’ve never once taken part in any of the elections and other events that Russia has organized here, and I won’t be taking part today. That will also be true of most Chechens, because twice in the last fifteen years Russia has made no secret of what it really thinks of us as ‘citizens’. Medvedev, Zyuganov, Zhirinovsky and the rest are all the same to me. They’re representatives of the Kremlin, of the government that was responsible for the destruction of my people. How can we respect such a government? How can we vote for Medvedev, who is Putin’s officially named successor – the heir to a man whose name, together with that of Boris Yeltsin, has become a term of abuse in Chechnya? I still remember his incendiary call to ‘wipe out the Chechens in the outhouse’.”
Grozny resident Shamadi Damayev is convinced that it’s all just a charade: "In our country (Russia) it’s long been established that the government does one thing and the people another. The government only remembers the poor ‘electorate’ when it needs to show the West that there is some semblance of democracy here – I’m referring to these so-called presidential elections which are taking place today. It’s obvious to anyone that they’re nothing but another cheap spectacle, a show that’s been arranged by the Kremlin. Medvedev will be President. Zyuganov, Zhirinovsky, and Bogdanov are just the usual extras brought in for the Western consumer. It was all decided long ago."
Though most Chechens privately say that they simply won’t vote in these elections, few of them doubt that the official results will be no less impressive than those in December last year, when according to the Chechen Central Electoral Commission the turnout was more than 99.5% of the total number of voters, of whom there are some 586,000. Some even think that the official figure will be even higher.
"Everything in our republic is ‘positive’ now, as they say," jokes another Grozny resident, Vakhid, who used to work as a teacher, but is now a taxi-driver. "Everything’s developing, improving and so on. Last year the people ‘showed a high level of awareness’ when there was such a high turnout for the Duma elections and everyone allegedly voted for the official candidates. The people will probably once again show its ‘ideological and political maturity,’ and even improve on last time!"
"People are being told that there’s a ‘Putin plan’, a ‘Putin political line’, and so on. It’s all in the spirit of the old Soviet days. The word ‘successor’ has firmly entered the political lexicon, as if this were a monarchy and we were talking about the transfer of power from the Tsar to his son. Democracy in Russia has died before it was even born. ‘Tsar’ Putin has named his heir and the new Russian president will certainly be Medvedev. The electoral commissions will massage the figures as usual. I have no doubt of that," a Chechen political analyst says.
Meanwhile, activity at Grozny’s polling stations has not been much more in evidence than it was last December, at the time of the Duma elections. Now as then, everything has been done to create the appearance of such activity. With most polling stations located in schools, the presence of a few dozen teachers (who have been told to be at their places of work today) in a school hallway may perhaps be mistaken by the uninitiated for voters “hurrying to express their will”. By such primitive methods is the backdrop being prepared for another display of overwhelming support for the new President, the successor to Vladimir Putin, viewed in Chechnya as one of the Kremlin’s most unloved masters. (Translation by DM) (T) RELATED ARTICLES:
· How it all started (humorous footage on Youtube, 1.3.2008)
· Self-styled ID checks underway on the eve of elections in Chechnya (PW, 25.2.2008)
· In Chechnya, no doubt of victory for United Russia (PW, 30.11.2007)
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