How has the political situation in Chechnya changed after Alu Alkhanov's victory in the republic's presidential elections?
At first glance it may not seem that there have been any serious or principal changes. After all, throughout the election campaign Mr Alkhanov positioned himself as the successor to the pro-Moscow Akhmad Kadyrov, who was assassinated on May 9. You will not find a single important thesis in Mr Alkhanov's program that is significantly different from the platform that Mr Kadyrov published in autumn 2003. So far there has been no visible breakthrough in terms of strengthening security or alleviating the confrontation in Chechnya. When the presidential votes were being counted during the night, shooting could be heard, which is a usual thing here.
Nevertheless, one could say that Mr Alkhanov's victory has outlined or, to be more precise, is outlining a number of political shifts that, provided the trend continues, may seriously change the situation in Chechnya.
First of all, Mr Alkhanov is the first of Chechnya's four presidents who has never fought against Russia. Moreover, in the 1990s, at the heat of Russian-Chechen confrontation when the outcome was unpredictable, he even fought against separatists with pro-Russian Chechens.
Before the elections you could only guess how many such pro-Russian Chechens there were in the republic. Moscow said that they were in the overwhelming majority, while former president Aslan Maskhadov's separatists claimed that there were only a few dozen or maybe hundreds, but all of them were traitors of their own people.
After the elections it has become clear that the truth lies somewhere in between, as is often the case. Mr Alkhanov won 320,000 votes; this means more than just a hundred abjurers from the cause of Chechen independence, but over half the electorate. This may not represent an overwhelming majority as Moscow might like,but it is still a majority.
Today, for the first time in the last fifteen years, the people have received an opportunity of uniting politically and working actively with the newly elect leader with broad powers.
A great deal will depend on Mr Alkhanov's ability to persuade the people that the pro-Russian position was worth sticking to throughout the fifteen years of Chechnya's unrest.
Here it is necessary to point to another political shift that may drastically change the situation in the republic. It is certainly important that Mr Alkhanov and his supporters in Chechnya have taken a pro-Russian stand. But it is as vital that Moscow, in its turn, accepts and endorses their initiatives.
President Kadyrov repeatedly said that revenues from Chechen oil sales should remain in the republic. Similar ideas came from the Chechen separatist leader, Mr Maskhadov, when he was in contact with the Kremlin in the mid-1990s.
However, Mr Maskhadov was declared a criminal, and Mr Kadyrov, although often received in the Kremlin, did not succeed with this issue either. Mr Alkhanov is luckier in this respect. Even before the presidential election, Russian President Vladimir Putin supported his proposal to restore Chechnya using revenues from the republic's oil. Besides the evident economic and financial advantages to Chechnya, it also shows that the new Chechen president has more than incidental, temporary allies in the Kremlin, but like-minded associates, with whom he can and must build a long-term policy.
It remains to be seen how the above-mentioned political changes will become apparent and what they will lead to. So far developments in Chechnya have been strongly influenced by chance. It takes a remote-control bomb a second to destroy what politicians and Chechen society have been trying to achieve for months and even years.
Nevertheless, political changes in the republic are evident. And they will continue.
