There's something wrong with this suprise meter...
Kremlin-backed candidate Akhmad Kadyrov is heading for an emphatic victory in an election that has been widely discredited. Kadyrov took an early lead with as much as 80% of the vote in the most populated areas such as Grozny and Gudermes, the regionâs second-largest city, according to the ITAR-TASS news agency Sunday night. Despite widespread reports of nigh-on empty polling stations, election officials said turnout was over 80%.
| "Remember to vote early and often!" |
Kadyrov faced no serious rivals after many other candidates were either disqualified from running or otherwise removed.
"I heard y'er gonna drop outta the race, Oleg!"
"Why no, Big Igor, I wasn't... Uhhh... Yeah. I guess I am." |
The election, which took place amid high security, came almost exactly four years after Russia poured as many as 80,000 troops into the Caucasus republic in what Moscow called an âanti-terror operationâ to quash the countryâs secessionist rebels. The conflict has since turned into a brutal guerrilla war of attrition, claiming tens of thousands of civilian lives. Many more have been made refugees trying to flee the fighting. Russia has officially lost between 5000 and 12,000 soldiers according to human rights groups. Kadyrov, whom opinion polls have shown to be widely unpopular in his native republic, said he would ask the Russian parliament to approve a new amnesty for rebels who lay down their weapons, although a previous amnesty that ended on 1 September was taken up by few rebels. According to the electoral commission 560,000 registered voters were given a choice of seven candidates in the election which Moscow pledged would be free and fair. |