Sham Expression of Popular Will

In the autumn of 1994, Russia attacked the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria under the name of a puppet opposition, and on 11 December 1994 the Russian army openly invaded the republic. Russia twice held "elections" on the seized land of Ichkeria to pass off the puppet government as chosen by the people^[1].

By the autumn of 1995, the Russian army had seized Grozny, the capital of Ichkeria, and the plain in the north of the republic. On 24 October 1995, Russia put Zavgayev at the head of the puppet government in Grozny (see: "Puppet Government")^[1].

On 1 November 1995, the puppet parliament, assembled from deputies of the Soviet era, introduced the post of head of the republic. On 5 November, the deputies scheduled the election for this post for 16 December, the day of the elections to the Russian parliament. On 12 May 1996, the puppet deputies scheduled the election of a new parliament for 16 June, the day of the Russian presidential election^[1].

From 16 November 1995 until voting day, Russian servicemen at checkpoints let only people registered there into the stanitsa of Assinovskaya and the village of Sernovodsk in the west of Ichkeria, and did not let candidates and campaigners through (see: "Transport Blockade"). From 11 to 20 December, Shkirko, commander of the occupation troops, forbade entry into Grozny without a special pass. The occupiers at checkpoints did not let accredited journalists into the city^[1].

On 12 December 1995, the puppet parliament allowed voting at any polling station with any document^[1]. The Russian-controlled election commissions of the republic and of Grozny gave numbers of the city's voters that differed twofold: 120 and 250 thousand^[1][2]. Both commissions refused to show the voter lists^[1].

The staff of the Assistance Group, the mission of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), left Ichkeria for the voting days in December 1995. There were no international observers at the elections. On 9 June 1996, a week before the new elections, the puppet government declared the Assistance Group undesirable (see: "Expulsion of Foreign Missions")^[1].

On 6 December 1995, Russian soldiers at checkpoints did not let delegates from the south of Ichkeria into Grozny, and the congress of supporters of Khasbulatov, the former head of the parliament in Moscow, did not take place. On 9 December, Khasbulatov, Zavgayev's main rival, withdrew from the election^[1].

From 14 to 17 December 1995, the occupiers held the vote for head of the republic. Russian troops did not control the Shali district southeast of Grozny or the mountain districts in the south, and there was no voting there. Hundreds of thousands of citizens of Ichkeria had fled the war out of the republic and could not vote^[1]. On 18 December, the Russian-controlled election commission in Grozny announced that more than 60% of the population had voted and about 90% of them had chosen Zavgayev^[1]. On 21 April 1996, Ruslan Akhtakhanov, adviser to Dzhokhar Dudayev, the president of Ichkeria, told the public tribunal of the Russian Glasnost Foundation in Moscow about the voting in Samashki, a village in the west of Ichkeria: "The residents of Samashki said that there had been no elections in their village. <...> a week after the scheduled elections Mr. Zavgayev, sitting in a television studio, thanked the population of the republic that had supported him so vigorously. And he said that the strongest support — 70-80 percent of the population — came from the village of Samashki." According to Ruslan Akhtakhanov, before the elections members of the Russian-controlled village administration went around the village and copied the Chechens' passports and signatures into lists. Ninety-nine percent of those who voted on 17 December, he said, were from these lists^[3].

On 14 December 1995, the Russian-controlled administration of Gudermes, the second-largest town of the republic, broadcast by radio that the elections would be held anyway and that no one would shoot at people, while the Armed Forces of Ichkeria liberated the town from the occupiers that day. On 17 December at nine in the evening, as soon as the polling stations closed, Russian pilots began bombing Gudermes (see: "Indiscriminate Attacks")^[4].

On 10 June 1996, in Nazran, a town in Russian-controlled Ingushetia, the delegations of Russia and Ichkeria recorded in the ceasefire protocol that elections would be held after the withdrawal of Russian troops and the disarmament of the army of Ichkeria^[5]. After the signing of the protocol, Lobov, the representative of the president of Russia in Ichkeria, said on Grozny television: "I see no serious reasons for their [the elections'] cancellation or postponement, as the separatists demand" (that is what the Russians called the government and the Armed Forces of Ichkeria)^[1]. On 14-16 June, the colonizer held the election of a new parliament of the republic and of the president of Russia, although its army remained in Ichkeria. Irina Dementyeva, correspondent of the Moscow newspaper Izvestia, wrote on 20 June: "As early as the morning of the sixteenth… the head of the republic [Zavgayev] named the percentage of those who had voted — 50. An hour and a half later the chairman of the republican izbirkom [election commission]… told the same journalists: as of 12 noon, 23 percent of the voters had voted". The Russian-controlled election commission in Grozny announced that more than 60% of the voters had voted and that Russian president Yeltsin had received more than half the votes in the Chechen Republic^[1]. On 17 and 18 June, the OSCE stated that the elections had not been free and fair and that the decision to hold them had violated the protocols of 10 June on the withdrawal of troops^[1][6][7].

On 16 June 1996, Gudermes and the villages of Bachi-Yurt, Alleroy and Tsentoroy in the east of Ichkeria did not vote. The stanitsa of Shelkovskaya in the north of the republic, the town of Shali and the villages of Kurchaloy and Vedeno southeast of Grozny did not vote^[8]. After 16 June, officials and public figures of the republic confirmed in writing that there had been no elections in Gudermes, or in 64 villages, stanitsas and settlements of six districts of Ichkeria, including places where, according to official data, Russian troops were stationed. Heads of administrations subordinate to Russia signed some of these papers and certified them with seals bearing the coat of arms of Russia, and one paper was signed by the chairman and secretary of the election commission of the Gudermes district^[1]. On 3 July, in the second round of the election, there was no voting in Shali, Novye Atagi, Gekhi and Gekhi-Chu south of Grozny. The election commission closed the polling station in Urus-Martan, a town southwest of Grozny, at four in the afternoon, announcing that 98% of the voters there had already voted. According to the commissions' protocols, in the second round 74% of the voters in the Chechen Republic voted and 73% of them chose Yeltsin, and the Central Election Commission of Russia reported that it had received no information about violations^[1].

Human rights defenders of Memorial write that both times the elections were not genuine and the voters could not freely express their will^[1].

In August 1996, the Armed Forces of Ichkeria liberated Grozny from the occupiers, forcing Russia to the negotiating table^[8]. On 31 August 1996, peace agreements were signed in Khasavyurt (see: "Sham Treaties")^[9]. On 31 December 1996, the last Russian troops left the republic. On 27 January 1997, the citizens of Ichkeria elected the president and parliament of the republic. Aslan Maskhadov became president^[1].