Doubts Over Moscow's Man in Chechnya Threaten Russia's Plans
MOSCOW — With about six weeks to go before the elections that were supposed to end four years of war in the breakaway republic of Chechnya, there are growing signs that the man Russia has counted on to preside over the new stability could lose the election.
The new doubts about Akhmad Kadyrov, head of the Moscow-backed Chechen administration and essentially the Kremlin's man in Chechnya, threaten to turn on its head Russia's plan to install a stable new government and emerge from a war that increasingly shows little signs of political resolution.
Even if Kadyrov wins the popular vote with Kremlin intervention, various Chechen and Russian analysts said this week, the former religious leader has become so unpopular in the republic that some Kremlin officials now believe his presidency would almost guarantee continued violence and instability.
Worse, these analysts said, no easy political alternative has emerged. Kadyrov and his militiamen have become so entrenched in Grozny, the Chechen capital -- thanks in large part to the Kremlin's backing -- that they might well retreat to the mountains and take up arms against anyone else elected to the presidency.
Officially, the government in Moscow says it is not backing anyone in the Oct. 5 presidential elections -- even as the Kremlin's spokesman on Chechnya this week acknowledged for the first time that there are doubts about Kadyrov's viability.
"It is clear the federal authorities are reluctant to associate themselves with a loser. So we don't have a favorite in Chechnya," Sergei Yastrzhembsky, Russia's senior spokesman on Chechnya, said in an interview.
In a sign of the Kremlin's growing doubts about Kadyrov's prospects, Yastrzhembsky said Kadyrov -- whose brutal tactics and corrupt aides have prompted many in Chechnya to fear him more than the Russians -- has been offered another post outside Chechnya. He predicted that the Chechen administrator is enough of a politician to accept the offer, if it becomes necessary, rather than join the opposition.
"Kadyrov has been told already that if he loses, the government [in Moscow] will not abandon him like this, and he will get another appointment someplace else, but not in Chechnya. He has been warned that it's a totally different game now, and he has to fight for his own goals himself," Yastrzhembsky said.
