By empty (11/28/2005 issue of the CACI Analyst)
Head of a delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) to Chechnya Andreas Gross has doubted the correctness of parliamentary elections in conditions when people are being killed and abducted in the republic. The real authorities, law enforcement bodies, are intimidating people, so it is difficult to evaluate the elections in such conditions, even if they are technically correct, he said at a Monday meeting with Chechen President Alu Alkhanov in Grozny. He said that in Chechnya delegation members met ordinary people.
Head of a delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) to Chechnya Andreas Gross has doubted the correctness of parliamentary elections in conditions when people are being killed and abducted in the republic. The real authorities, law enforcement bodies, are intimidating people, so it is difficult to evaluate the elections in such conditions, even if they are technically correct, he said at a Monday meeting with Chechen President Alu Alkhanov in Grozny. He said that in Chechnya delegation members met ordinary people. They talked to three women - one elderly, one middle aged and one young who were going to vote and were all scared, he said. Members of their families had been killed and the women did not know what had happened to their children, Gross said. The women were sure that law enforcement personnel were involved, he said. In his opinion, such actions undermine the foundations of government. Gross expressed willingness to help the legitimate authorities and to promote strengthening them, because only legitimate authorities can protect people. (Interfax)