Chechnya’s referendum: The vote of the dead souls

Date: 29/03/03

The referendum on Chechnya's future was haunted by spirits of the past

PERHAPS it was the ghosts who voted - flowing up the steps, floating through the windows, squeezing through the bullet holes and broken walls to exercise their franchise. The authorities declared that 477,000 people turned out for Chechnya's referendum on March 23rd. That would have been 88% of registered voters. People were supposedly “standing in line at some polling stations for ten or 15 minutes”. But even on a tightly-controlled government tour of selected polling stations in and near Grozny, the bombed-out capital, there were only handfuls of people in the dusty streets - let alone voting. To anyone who has seen the activity in any country when just half the electorate takes part, in Chechnya it seemed that it was not the living souls who made up the numbers but the dead ones.

It would be fitting. Uncounted thousands, or more likely tens of thousands, have died and many more have fled since the first post-Soviet Chechen war began in 1994. Last October's census, according to preliminary figures, found nearly 1.1m people in Chechnya - a shade more than when the wars began - but in the same month the Danish Refugee Council, the aid agency most active in Chechnya, which does regular population surveys, estimated 785,000.

Never mind, then, that there was no open campaign for the no vote, that the only election monitors were a pro-Kremlin political party and a scattered handful of foreigners, or that two foreign journalists picked up ballot papers and dropped them (marked no, they promise) into the box at a polling station in Grozny. Never mind the old lady in Chernokozovo who showed a polling-station official her marked ballot paper to check if she had done it right. (“No, no,” cried the distraught official, “I told you to mark just one box!” And gave her a fresh ballot and showed her where to put the cross.) The referendum was meant as an exercise not in democracy but in political control.

Control has fragmented since the start of the second war in 1999. The rebels, nominally led by Aslan Maskhadov, still inflict heavy losses on the Russian army south of Grozny, particularly in the mountainous regions where Caucasian clan warriors first resisted the Russian invaders two centuries ago. But Mr Maskhadov, the last man to be elected president of Chechnya, in 1997, has lost authority to more radical rebel commanders who have adopted the battle cries of Islamic fundamentalism, increasingly popular with angry young Chechen men. Meanwhile the lowlands of the north are supposed to be under the sway of a Kremlin-appointed administrator, Akhmad Kadyrov, a former mufti of Chechnya. But he shares power with a government of other centrally-appointed ministers. They have been shuffled twice recently, in what pundits interpret as attempts to clip Mr Kadyrov's wings.

It won't produce peace

So the point of the referendum was not merely to end Chechnya's separatist aspirations, which it did by adopting a new constitution that declares it firmly part of Russia. It was also to start defining who runs the place. As well as the constitution, Chechnya's voters (or their phantoms) overwhelmingly approved laws for electing the president and parliament. The elections, which may take place later this year, will be another step in the “Chechenisation” of Chechnya.

An elected Chechen government, whether the poll was fair or not, would let the Kremlin shrug off much responsibility for what happens there while appearing to honour its promise to give Chechnya “autonomy within Russia's borders”. It may also be a way to squeeze control out of military hands and into civilian ones. Kremlin-watchers debate to what extent President Vladimir Putin commands the army. Some think his inability to bring the military conflict to an end may be partly because he cannot get the army to leave. Combat pay, the siphoning-off of budget funds, arms sales, kidnapping and general racketeering make the war profitable for both sides.

And since the new constitution allows the Russian president to sack the Chechen one without giving a reason, there is little danger of his getting too independent. Nor should Chechnya's ethereal electors have any trouble choosing the president that Moscow likes best. Indeed, if Sunday's visible turnout was anything to go by, a little spiritual boosting of the numbers may be essential just to make the election valid. Mr Putin said that the event had “exceeded all our optimistic expectations.”

But whoever wins must have not just good relations with Moscow but also legitimacy among Chechens. Most are sick of the war but also distrust politicians. Some think that Mr Kadyrov, the current administrator, might turn out to be the least unpopular president. Despite a rocky time in office, capped by a rebel bombing that destroyed his headquarters in December, he may be winning support for his attempts to piece Chechnya back together. There are some “small but very positive signs” of reconstruction in Grozny, says Lars Hallberg, the country director for the Danish Refugee Council. Other analysts point to Moscow-based Chechen politicians such as Aslanbek Aslakhanov, the MP for Chechnya, or Ruslan Khasbulatov, a former parliamentary speaker. They enjoy local respect but less local experience. It remains to be seen what the spirits will decide.