New leader vows peace in Chechnya

Chechnya's new leader vowed yesterday to rebuild the shattered region and crush extremists after winning an election condemned by a rights group as a show stage-managed by Moscow.

Alu Alkhanov, the former local interior minister who was handpicked for the job by Russian President Vladimir Putin, won 73.48 per cent of Sunday's vote according to preliminary results, the election commission said.

The tall, moustachioed Alkhanov said his administration would focus on reviving Chechnya's economy, shattered by war, and creating 150,000 new jobs in the next five years.

"We are one team and together we will solve all pressing problems... come here (Chechnya) at the end of 2005 and you will see that a lot is fresh, a lot is new," Mr Alkhanov was quoted by the Itar-Tass news agency as saying at his first news conference as president.

"We need a new ideology, which will draw a firm line against (Islamic) Wahhabism and extremism and put people on a peaceful, democratic path."

But Mr Alkhanov, 47, faces a battle to garner some of the standing enjoyed by his hard-nosed predecessor Akhmad Kadyrov, assassinated in May, and to bring stability to a region where separatists are becoming more audacious in their attacks. The poll took place against a backdrop of heavy fighting in Chechnya and two nearly simultaneous plane crashes last week that killed at least 90 people elsewhere in Russia. Investigators said both were brought down by bombs, and many Russians blamed Chechen rebels.

Moderate separatists denied any link to the crashes. The International Helsinki Federation rights group said the election could be neither free nor fair in such conditions.

"The brutal Chechnya conflict is crying out for a political solution. Yet manipulating democracy to produce a predetermined outcome is neither fair nor a solution," said Aaron Rhodes, executive director of the IHF.

Tanya Lokshina of the Moscow Helsinki Group said: "(Mr) Alkhanov's de facto appointment as president, in effect dictating to the Chechen people who should be their representative, will not lead to lasting peace."

The European Union presidency - the Dutch government - also expressed regret that security concerns had made it impossible to organise an international observer mission.

Election officials said the poll was free and fair. Dutch Foreign Minister Ben Bot said in a statement he hoped that the new president and the Russian authorities would "make renewed efforts to start a process leading to a genuine political settlement".