Still, the outcome of the referendum proved to be a formality. Within six hours, the 50 percent turnout needed to legitimize the referendum had been passed. By the end, 80 percent of the electorate had voted in the first major poll since 1997. Not all votes have been counted yet, but the preliminary results conveyed by the television channel NTV leave no doubts about the outcome. Ninety-six percent voted for the new constitution, 96 percent for a law about establishing a parliament, and 95 percent for a law on presidential powers.
The scale of the turnout was far higher than even the Kremlin's own prediction that 66 percent of Chechens would vote. "We hadn't projected this even in our most optimistic forecasts," said Kadyrov. In one area, as many as 95 percent of the electorate went to the polling stations. In refugee camps in Ingushetia, Dagestan, and the Stavropol region, the turnout was also unexpectedly large.
There are doubts, though, about the validity of the vote. The referendum was preceded by a major clash between Russia and Council of Europe rapporteur Frank Judd, after Judd in January called on Russia to postpone the referendum on the grounds that security could not be ensured and that the electorate had not been provided with adequate access to information. The Council of Europe ultimately accepted a watered-down resolution on 29 January in which it said that "it is unlikely" that the conditions necessary to hold a referendum would be in place in time.
The Council of Europe did not send observers. Nor did the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), though it sent a small team of fact-finders. According to Hrair Palian, the leader of the team, "the organization and conduct of the referendum were not without shortcomings," but in an Interfax report cited by the Moscow Times, said the referendum was "a starting point for political changes in the republic."
Prior to the vote, there were claims that people had been blackmailed into registering to vote under threat of losing their entitlement to food aid. Suggestions that the number of voters registered had been inflated were coupled with questions about the decision to allow 36,000 Russian military serviceman to vote. There were also reports of fake leaflets allegedly from rebel leader Aslan Maskhadov calling on Chechens to vote yes in the referendum. Maskhadov had called for a boycott.
However, in one area of concern, security, there are fewer doubts about the relative success of the day. Threats to disrupt the vote failed to materialize, perhaps because of a huge military presence. However, that presence, along with the disappearance of two Russian helicopters on 20 March, underlined just how far from normal Chechnya remains.
