GROZNY, Nov 27: Voters in war-ravaged Chechnya cast ballots on Sunday in their first parliamentary elections in eight years, billed by the Kremlin as a milestone in restoring normal life but already dismissed by rights groups as a fake.

Polling stations guarded by troops and armoured vehicles opened at 8:00am (1000am PST) and were to close at 6:00pm (0800pm PST) with the first preliminary results expected three hours later.

Officials say almost 600,000 people, including 34,000 Russian soldiers stationed in the volatile Caucasus province, are registered. Some 350 candidates are running for the 18-seat Republican Council and the 40-seat People’s Assembly.

Candidates include five officers with the Russian armed forces and officials with the pro-Russian Chechen administration.

The Kremlin and the local administration it backs in Grozny have been talking up Sunday’s vote, with President Vladimir Putin characterizing it as proof that life was returning to normal in Chechnya after years of war.

But international and Russian human rights groups have shown less enthusiasm, describing the vote as a charade.

About four hours after polling opened, officials reported turnout had surpassed the 25 per cent needed for the ballot to be pronounced valid.

“We can say the elections are valid,” Chechen President Alu Alkhanov told reporters in the eastern city of Tsentoroi after voting in his hometown of Urus-Martan in the south.

The powerful deputy prime minister in the province’s Moscow-backed government, Ramzan Kadyrov, said the elections were a step in the “most important period in recent years”.

“Today we are choosing a parliament as happens in other parts of Russia,” said Kadyrov, son of late Chechen president Akhmad Kadyrov whose term came to a violent end 18 months ago when he was assassinated in a bomb attack in Grozny.

“I will consider my father’s work done when the shooting and killing of people stops,” he said.

Sunday’s vote is the fourth in two years, following a constitutional referendum and two presidential elections. Security has been heavily reinforced for fear of attacks by Chechen separatist fighters.

Russian news agencies reported that three landmines were discovered on a road after Alkhanov had travelled on it. They were defused without incident, a website said.

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe has declined to send poll monitors, citing reasons including security concerns.

The Russian authorities said 23,000 observers, either Russian or from other former Soviet republics were monitoring the vote.

The walls of Grozny were covered with posters of pro-Kremlin party United Russia, saying: “For the good of the people and the honour of the Chechen republic.” Other parties, including the Communists and the liberal SPS party, also put up posters.

Throughout the province, residents said they were less interested in who won the elections than in seeing the process lead to better security and more economic opportunity.—AFP