|
English Language Page Tanya Lokshina, Moscow Helsinki Group If you travel to Chechnya specifically to assess the pre-election situation, you cannot but visit the candidates’ headquarters. And that’s exactly what I was planning to do, having reached Grozny on a grey rainy Thursday, September 18, 2003, with less than three weeks to go until Chechnya's presidential elections (or, as the local paper Terskaya Pravda reports, “nation-wide elections…of the 1st President of free Chechnya” that “will get on as chronicles in the history of the Chechen people and will be then studied by our descendants”). Hopefully while studying these highly extraordinary events, the notorious “descendants” will not ignore my own humble observations. It took me quite a while to find the Department of Commerce in the tumbledown city (to be precise, the word “tumbledown” is not strong enough to describe Grozny, but since there are some buildings the in city miraculously remaining intact it cannot be labeled as “leveled with ground”). Having gone up the dilapidated stairway to the second floor, I found what I was looking for — a sign “Headquarters of Nikolai Paizullaev.” The visit to Paizullaev was a dead cert on my agenda for a number of reasons. On the one hand, being a leading specialist of the press service of the Acting President of Chechnya, Kadyrov, he appears to stand against his own boss. On the other hand, there are almost no visual propaganda aids of him in the city. (However, this does not mean much; except for the universal Kadyrov`s posters and banners, there was no significant campaigning activity in Chechnya by September 18; only several episodic fragments…) Finally, it was Paizullaev who initiated the de-registration procedure against Malik Saidullaev, the one and only remaining rival to the current head of the Republic in the pre-election steeplechase after such barriers as Aslambek Aslakhanov and Khussein Dzhabrailov had been successfully eliminated. In general, this candidate is an enigmatic and contradictory character. Only it turned out to be impossible to get in touch with him personally on that particular day, particularly as Paizullaev`s phone number was not registered in the list of candidates for presidency and I did not have the time to look for alternative means of contacting him to arrange for a meeting. However, the impossibility to have a talk with the candidate in person did not upset me too much; as far as elections are concerned, a lengthy conversation with the head of headquarters can be much more informative. Having entered the room, I made out the standard opening speech, “Moscow Helsinki Group, the eldest and one of the strongest of human rights organisations now active in Russia, is seriously concerned with the pre-election situation in Chechnya and intends to find out to what extent electoral rights of the citizens are being complied with.” A tousled middle-aged man with shining dark eyes asked me with a genuine surprise: “So, you have come to see me?” “If you are the head of headquarters, then I have come to see you.” “Yes, I am,” he introduced himself, “Movsar Kagirmanov. And you really want to speak to me? What about?” “Well,” I twittered, “You are running the election headquarters, working with voters. I wonder how you see the pre-election situation, whether there are any problems your team’s facing? “Wait a second. I will call on the staff, so you can see everyone. Hey, come over here! All of you! Someone came to talk to us!” This war-cry of the chief of headquarters revealed such a genuine rejoicing that I suspected I was the first visitor in the whole history of this establishment. As if with a wave of a magic stick, the room was filled with people, and more than a dozen pairs of eyes gazed at me in expectation. “So, now everybody is here,” Kagirmanov began the conversation. “And do you know the name of our candidate?” “ Nikolai Paizullaev,” I answered horror-struck, trying to think up the best way for getting out of this madhouse. All the people around the table nodded in accord. “Absolutely right,” Karigmanov acknowledged, “And here is his portrait. This is a gift for you.” A middle-aged man in a suit stared at me from the glossy poster. He sprouted a pensive romantic look and an imposing grey moustache. “And how many headquarters does the candidate have all in all? How did you complete the collection of signatures?” I was told that there was nothing else but the headquarters where I was sitting at the moment. On the other hand, there were district representatives and most of them were also present in the room. A total of 13,580 signatures was collected. Kagirmanov was found out to be not just the head of the headquarters but also the head of the Charity Foundation “Mother’s Call” registered as long ago as in 1995. Apparently, people involved in the Foundation activities were also the ones collecting the signatures in support of Paizullaev. The headquarters staff is involved in this Foundation in one way or another. This was the one tiny streak of normality in our conversation. Then, having reached out to me across the table, Kagirmanov uttered confidentially, “You have asked me about the problems we’ve got on hand, haven’t you? I have to tell you, there is a problem, and a very serious one indeed: the headquarters team has not been paid anything up till now. My colleagues can confirm that.” “You have not been paid by your candidate?” “No, we haven’t. And it is a very disturbing situation.” “I am sorry. I really feel for you. And does your candidate have a program?” “What?” “A program.” “Mr. Paizullaev has not presented any program so far.” “But he will?” “Very unlikely…” “Then, how are you promoting him? What did you tell people when collecting these 13,500 signatures?” “Well, I personally explained everything to the agitators. I have known him for a long time. We were saying that he had initially worked at a street market, and he is such type of a person…” “And that was enough?” “But he is a folk poet.” I recalled one poet running for the presidency of Chechnya before — Zelimkhan Yandarbiev — the best proof of poor compatibility of these roles. “And how do you run a campaign? Which agitation materials do you disseminate?” “Materials?” “Like posters, leaflets…” “No, we just give people Paizullaev’s portraits and the Constitution of the Chechen Republic.” After that, I was handed a green brochure titled ”Draft Constitution of the Chechen Republic,” which seemed to have remained from the time of the unforgettable March referendum. Reverntly holding the brochure, I decided to ask a delicate question, “If I am not mistaken, it was your candidate who initiated the withdrawal of Malik Saidullaev?” A puzzled woman shielded her mouth with a hand: “What, Malik was removed?” “Yes, a week ago.” “But I had no idea.” The other staff officers started exchanging opinions and asking questions. They learnt from me that the RF Supreme Court was in process of reviewing that case, and it would make a decision soon… The chief of the headquarters tried to take control over the situation: “We found out about that only afterwards. We did not know before. And the candidate himself did not know. He was told at the last moment, and he filed the complaint.” “And who told him?” “Well, you know…” “And what is your candidate going to do?” “As the saying goes, ‘The moor has done his deed— it’s time for the moor to leave.’” “Do you think he will quit, then?” “We are telling you. The staff officers have not been paid a penny. And we haven’t even seen the candidate for a couple of weeks already. We cannot get his signature for some very important documents for two whole weeks! You’re telling me about the candidate! We were the ones who put him up this high, so we’ll be the ones to bring him down…” I noticed a sheet of paper on the table in front of the head of the headquarters. Under the heading “Opinion Poll” there was a table with the names of and brief personal data on the running candidates and two simple questions for the voters, “Who are you going to vote for?” and “Why are you going to vote this way?” There were also columns to record some basic information on the respondents. “You’ve got a questionnaire here. How many people did your survey cover? What are the results?” “We have not surveyed any one. Because we do not know how. And we have not been paid for two months…” “And why is the questionnaire here, then?” “Somebody brought it and asked to conduct the survey. But we are not doing anything. I just use it to mark the withdrawn candidates. Look here, I put a “minus” next to Aslakhanov`s name. Yesterday Tsuev left, so I put a “minus” next to his name too. And a very little “minus” sign next to Saidullaev’s, because it is not certain yet…” At this dramatic moment I finally got up and left. Either I have got mad, or the world has turned into a bedlam. This theatre of absurd would have been funny if there had been no real living people within, people worn out by the war reading in the newspapers today, “Chechnya's presidential election shall provide for the unification of Chechnya. This election is necessary and timely.” Two hours later, I was talking to mothers of the “disappeared,” crowded on the doorstep of the local administration building in Shali. The women kept repeating, “Which elections can one speak of when we even do not know where our sons are and whether they are alive or dead?” These words and this grief were washing over the ridiculous scene in the candidate’s headquarters, turning in from a farce into a tragedy. Back |
Íàøà êíîïêà  |
|