18 June 2004 03:28
Kremlin`s Pick to Replace Kadyrov
GROZNY -- Alu Alkhanov has little if any experience in running an economy, he lacks charisma, and his public
administration skills have been limited to law enforcement.
Yet the Kremlin appears to have chosen this 47-year-old Chechen interior minister to run in and win the Aug. 29
presidential election in Chechnya.
The early elections are being held after Chechnya's pro-Moscow president, Akhmad Kadyrov, was killed when a bomb
exploded during a May 9 parade at the Dynamo stadium in Grozny.
The assassination of this assertive leader created a power vacuum in the republic, and questions linger as to whether
Alkhanov has the experience and the determination to bring peace to the republic and restore its economy.
It was Kadyrov who plucked Alkhanov from the obscure post of Grozny's transport police chief to make him the
republic's interior minister in April 2003. And, for now, the police general is largely basing his campaign on
pledges to continue the late Chechen leader's line.
"People want a continuation of the course," Alkhanov pronounced at a televised meeting with President
Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin on Tuesday. This carefully staged meeting sent a clear signal to all potential candidates
as to whom the Kremlin supports in the race.
Ten more candidates have registered to run, including a Moscow businesswoman, an adviser to Kadyrov and a pensioner
from the Moscow region. None of them are known well even inside Chechnya, except for Moscow-based businessman Malik
Saidullayev, who is Alkhanov's only strong rival.
Another potentially serious candidate, former Grozny Mayor Bislan Gantamirov, declared his presidential ambitions in
May but has yet to register.
Other potential rivals, such as Putin's adviser on Chechnya Aslanbek Aslakhanov, Moscow businessman Khusein
Dzhabrailov and State Duma Deputy Ruslan Yamadayev, are staying away. They realize they do not stand a chance without
Putin's support.
When Kadyrov ran for president last October, the Kremlin made sure that all other viable candidates were barred from
the race, including Saidullayev, and Kadyrov won more than 80 percent of the vote in an election tainted by reports of
mass rigging.
"If one is to judge from the last election, then it should be clear that whatever the Kremlin conceives will
happen. If they want to make Alkhanov president, then he will become one. Our participation or lack of participation
will not have any impact," Muslim Sambiyev, a 40-year old unemployed resident of Grozny, said Tuesday.
The chairman of Chechnya's elections committee, Abdul-Kerim Arsakhanov, denied that the Kremlin is the sole
kingmaker. "It is not important who the Kremlin stakes its bet on -- everything will be decided by the
voters," he said.
The Kremlin's backing often seems to be all a candidate needs, though.
"Elections in Chechnya will follow the pattern of the presidential poll in Ingushetia in 2002," independent
Chechen analyst Murad Nashkhoyev said Wednesday. "Back then, the rating of the current [Ingush] president, Murat
Zyazikov, was built upon a single photo that pictured him shaking hands with Putin."
Importantly, Alkhanov enjoys the full support of Kadyrov's clan, which includes his younger son, Ramzan, who
heads a security force of several thousand men, and Taus Dzhabrailov, chairman of the State Council. Like the Kadyrovs,
he belongs to the biggest of the Chechen clans, or teips -- benoi. Saidullayev also belongs to this teip.
While assured to win, Alkhanov may find it difficult to become a real leader in an environment dominated by such
heavyweights as Ramzan Kadyrov and may be reduced to a figurehead following the line pursued by his powerful backers in
Moscow and Grozny.
In an interview with Izvestia published Wednesday, Alkhanov repeatedly referred to himself as a team player rather
than a leader and vowed to continue the policy pursued by his predecessor. "I fully support the current style of
teamwork that was developed foremost by Akhmad-Khadzhi Kadyrov," he said.
Kadyrov, however, preferred not to share power, which led to a temporary power vacuum after his assassination and
prompted members of his retinue to initially declare his son as their presidential candidate, even though Ramzan
Kadyrov, at age 27, was not old enough to run. The Chechen constitution says the president must be at least 30.
Even when doing what he knows best -- policing -- Alkhanov has not struck his colleagues as particularly
strong-willed.
"He is somewhat weak -- guys didn't respect him a lot," said Chechen policeman Aslan Magomedov, who
helped to rescue Alkhanov when he and fellow policemen were trapped by rebels in Grozny during the first Chechen
war.
Alkhanov was the transport police chief in the pro-Moscow Chechen administration when rebels stormed the city in
August 1996 to force federal commanders to negotiate joint control of the city. Trapped in Grozny's railway
station, he stayed on to defend it with several colleagues. It was only by luck that Magomedov and several other
policemen managed to get through rebel lines and rescue their chief.
"He then thanked us a lot and promised not to forget it, and guaranteed to find us employment in case something
happened," Magomedov said in a recent interview.
Whether strong or weak, one obvious quality makes Alkhanov valuable in the eyes of the Kremlin -- his fierce loyalty,
which would allow the federal authorities to continue the transfer of power to ethnic Chechens, a process already dubbed
"Chechenization."
Alkhanov was in the rather small cohort of Chechens who sided with the Kremlin when then-Chechen leader Dzhokhar
Dudayev declared the independence of his republic in 1991. A career policeman, he was appointed to command the transport
police in the pro-Moscow Chechen administration in 1995 as the first Chechen war raged.
When that war ended with the withdrawal of federal troops, he took a job as the transport police chief in Shakhty in
the Rostov region, but returned to Chechnya with the beginning of Russia's second campaign in 1999 and served as
Grozny's transport police chief from 2000 until April 2003.
.TX-..**********************************************
[The Moscow Times] |
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