Violations registered during presidential election in Chechnya

The election of the president started in the Chechen Republic at 8 a.m. Observers registered several gross violations in the first three hours after the voting had begun. Election staff of Movsur Khamidov, who is running for the republican presidency, have told the Caucasian Knot correspondent they registered tampering with voters in the village of Sernovodskaya, Chechnya's Sunzha district.

In the Shali district, observers were not allowed to enter the territory of a military unit to control the voting process. "Our observers were not allowed to enter the territory of a military unit in the Shali district without any explanations, servicemen of the unit being voters in the presidential election. The observers were simply told it was an order by a certain Aleksandr Yakovlevich. It happened at 9.15 a.m. local time," members of Movsur Khamidov's election staff said to the Caucasian Knot correspondent. "Besides, we registered a case when many ballots were thrown in ballot-boxes at once at polling station 97, on the territory of a shoe factory in the Oktyabrsky district of Grozny. The most crying violation was registered in the Staropromislovsky district of Grozny. There, at polling station 406 on Avtomatchikov Street, ballot-boxes were already filled up at 8.15 a.m., i.e. 15 minutes after the polling station had opened!" the staff members said.