Chechens began voting yesterday for a new president, but few expect peace to follow from a Kremlin-sponsored contest overshadowed by fighting and twin plane crashes some have linked to rebels in the region. Officials in turbulent Chechnya, where President Vladimir Putin sent troops to cement his image as a strong leader before his election in 1999, said they expected no trouble.

But security was high – 14,000 Chechen police patrolled the streets, alongside Russian forces. Outside one polling station, police on 24-hour security shifts were stopping cars from parking within 15 metres of the building.

Kremlin-backed candidate Alu Alkhanov, a career policeman, is virtually certain to win the poll but many doubt his ability to stamp out a separatist rebellion that has raged for a decade. Tension surrounding the elections to replace Akhmad Kadyrov, assassinated in May, has been heightened by growing evidence that two passenger planes that crashed last Tuesday may have been blown up.

Officials have so far refused to blame the twin air disasters, in which at least 89 people were killed, on Chechens. But some fear they could be part of a new wave of attacks to coincide with the elections.

In Moscow, Putin swept into the Kremlin in his armoured motorcade just as polling stations were opening in Chechnya – an apparent indication he would be closely monitoring events through the day.

“Everything has been done to conduct normal, free, democratic elections”, chief electoral officer Abdul-Kerim Arsakhanov told Rossiya state television. “We expect a high turnout because our opinion polls, dear colleagues, show that a majority will go to the polls, will vote, will choose a president.”

Separatists have fought for a decade to win independence for their largely Muslim Caucasus homeland and push out Russian forces. Many Russians see control over Chechnya as crucial to the unity of a vast federation linking dozens of ethnic groups.

That belief boosted Putin’s popularity in 1999, but early military successes soon turned into a guerrilla war of attrition with the separatists. Attacks by rebels appear to have done little so far to dent his popularity in the rest of Russia.

Women suspects

Rebels assassinated Kadyrov in a bomb attack that exposed the precarious nature of Russian rule. They vow to kill Alkhanov as another “Moscow stooge”. Observers say Moscow’s open support for him may reduce his popularity among Chechens.

Theories in Moscow suggested that women believed to be Chechen brought down the two planes with explosives. The crashes followed a rebel attack last weekend in the regional capital Grozny that killed as many as 120 people.

“I will not go to vote, I never went before on principle. My vote does not matter”, said Isa, 36, a Chechen living in a refugee camp in the neighbouring region of Ingushetia. “Chechnya does not choose the president, Moscow appoints him.”

Putin has made his support for Alkhanov clear, regularly appearing in public with him. State television features Alkhanov daily, ignoring other candidates. Alkhanov’s six rivals in the electoral race are un-knowns.

“I do not rule out that the results will be rigged”, candidate Movsur Khamidov, an officer in the FSB security service, told Reuters. “The town is empty because of the violence on August 21. I think violence will continue.”

Oliver BULLOUGH