| Submit your comments on this article | |
| Caucasus | |
| Chechen Voters Approve New Constitution | |
| 2003-03-24 | |
| Voters in Chechnya overwhelmingly approved a constitution Sunday that the Kremlin asserts will end nearly a decade of bloodshed but which will keep the separatist republic in Russia. Results from 196 of 418 electoral districts showed slightly more than 96 percent of voters there supporting the constitution, designed, Moscow says, to push the breakaway region to peace. I'm surprised. Are you surprised? Russia's Central Election Commission said 207,390 people in those districts voted for the constitution, while 5,810 voted against. More than 79 percent of the 540,000 eligible voters cast ballots. Voters also were asked to approve legislation setting the stage for presidential and parliamentary elections. The legislation was receiving the same overwhelming support as the constitution, the electoral body said on its Web site. The results ``guarantee the irreversibility of the peaceful political formation of the republic,'' Russia's minister for Chechen affairs, Stanislav Ilyasov said. ``The Chechen people have determined their fate themselves,'' Ilyasov said. Somehow I don't think the rebels will agree. But the plebiscite's approval still left many key questions unresolved, including how much autonomy Chechnya will be given or when the elections will be held. Critics argued that a new constitution won't end the war and cannot replace negotiations with
Maskhadov and the dogs laid low, eh? Hrair Balian, the leader of a fact-finding team the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe sent to Chechnya, said that ``the organization and conduct of the referendum were not without shortcomings,'' the Interfax news agency reported. But he said he hoped the vote would be a starting point for further change in Chechnya. Monitors from the Commonwealth of Independent States, a Russian-dominated group of former Soviet republics, said the vote was fair despite what they called minor irregularities they said included the presence of armed, uniformed men at polling places, Interfax reported. "It's a cultural thing, Mr. Monitor, we always have armed men standing around in Chechnya." Thousands of Russian servicemen permanently stationed in Chechnya were eligible to vote and the vast majority did so, military officials said. | |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #2 I'm sticking with Spanish and Aussie wine for the time being. Lots of good stuff out there and it's waaaay cheaper than French (or Sonoma) varieties. |
| Posted by: jrosevear 2003-03-24 08:55:03 |
| #1 Beer. Cheers. Finals are done, but I'm boycotting vodka. Anybody have some palinka handy? |
| Posted by: therien 2003-03-24 03:18:48 |