CHECHENS flocked to vote yesterday for a new president they hope will secure their independence from Moscow, after two years of war which claimed tens of thousands of lives and destroyed their economy.
Turnout was so high among an electorate estimated at 517,000 that officials extended the closing time for voting by two hours to 10 p.m. to cope with the flow. An electoral officer said turnout by midday was 30 to 35 per cent.
"We need an end to chaos and these elections will put us on the road to a better life," said Mr Musa Sagalayev (45), after casting his ballot in the devastated capital, Grozny.
Patient queues built up at polling stations early on a bright winter morning, from snow clad villages in the Caucasus mountains to Soviet era collective farms on the plain, in Grozny and at special centres where busloads of war refugees poured in from across the frontier.
Mr Aslan Maskhadov (45), who led a few thousand guerrilla fighters to a stunning victory over the demoralised Russian army last August, is widely regarded as the front runner.
All the main contenders in the 13 man field vow to turn the de facto independence won in the war into sovereignty. They include the acting President, Mr Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, and the guerrilla leader, Mr Shamil Basayev, who is wanted in Russia for "terrorism".
President Boris Yeltsin, who has admitted that sending troops to crush Chechen secession in 1994 was a mistake, agreed to elections as part of a face saving peace deal.
The Kremlin would prefer Mr Maskhadov and abhors Mr Basayev but, in any case, flatly opposes independence for fear of unsettling its southern frontier and fuelling other ethnic conflicts.
More than 100 foreign observers are in Chechnya to monitor an election for the first time. Several observers from the Organisation for Security and Co operation in Europe (OSCE) said they were impressed by the smoothness of the process.
None of the observers had any of the security problems Chechen officials had feared. Journalists saw some minor violations, such as family members voting on each other's behalf. But there was little sign of intimidation and remarkably few guns in evidence for a region still awash with weaponry.
In some places, camouflaged guerrilla fighters stacked Kalashnikovs in the corner while they went into the voting booth.
Some 850 candidates are also standing for 63 seats.