Brussels, 26 March 2003. Several newspapers, including The Financial Times, Le Monde and Libération, as well as eye-witness reports state that the "referendum" organised by the Kremlin on Sunday 23 March on the adoption of a new "constitution" by the people of Chechnya - and the Russian troops - took place in an absolutely irregular fashion. According to the Russian authorities, 65% of the voters took part in the vote and 95% of the electors who went to the polling booths voted in favour of the "constitution" proposed by the Kremlin. According to the information gathered by various international correspondents, on the
other hand, the polling stations had "additional electoral rolls" allowing all kinds of manipulation, to the point that a French journalist even managed to add his name to the rolls and to vote at polling station no. 372. According to the same reports, a bus service was organised to take groups of "electors" from one polling station to another in order to give the impression of a constant flow of voters, and probably to add new electors to the "additional rolls". Finally, according to a representative of the OSCE, who underlined the fact that he was unable to be present as an observer, the organisation and progress of the vote were "far from ideal".

Question from Olivier Dupuis, Secretary of the Transnational Radical Party and Member of the European Parliament, to the European Commission:

"Does the Commission consider that the statements of its spokesman, according to whom the referendum was «a good step towards a political solution, satisfactory for the majority of the Chechens» are compatible with the information suggesting that it was no more than a macabre electoral farce organised by the Kremlin? Does the Commission intend to rectify without further delay the irresponsible statements made by its spokesman, and to tell the authorities of the Russian Federation very clearly that it is not taken in by such crude schemes, far removed from democratic practices and from the criteria on which Russia's membership
of the Council of Europe depends? Does the Commission intend to undertake a serious initiative to lead Mr Putin and Mr Maskhadov to negotiate a political solution to the Chechen tragedy?"

www.radicalparty.org

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Olivier Dupuis
Member of the European Parliament
http://www.radicalparty.org/
tel. +32 2 284 7198
fax +32 2 284 9198