New Chechen presidential election set for August 29

A presidential election in Russia's separatist republic of Chechnya to find a successor to assassinated pro-Moscow leader Akhmad Kadyrov has been set for August 29, an election official told AFP on Friday.
The decision was reached by the war-torn republic's election commission, which ruled that the results will be declared valid if 30 percent of registered voters show up at the polls.
The winner must have at least 50 percent of the cast ballots.
Kadyrov and another top Chechen official were killed on May 9 in a bomb blast in a Grozny stadium that has been claimed by rebel warlord Shamil Basayev, who has been leading the offensive against Russian troops since the start of the latest war in October 1999.
Some rebels in Chechnya plan to field their own candidate in the election, several separatist sources told AFP. The candidate would not be a rebel but would represent the interests of the separatists, they said.
Aslan Maskhadov, a fugitive rebel leader who was elected Chechnya's president for a five-year term in 1997 but driven from power by Russian troops at the start of the second war in 1999, is not in the running, the sources said.
The separatists have previously ignored all other elections in Chechnya since the start of the current war, saying the polls are illegitimate and have been falsified.
The presidential election was needed because of the murder of Kadyrov, a former rebel who switched to Moscow's side and represented the Kremlin's main hope of bringing peace and Russian authority to the region. Kadyrov and at least six others were killed in Grozny when a bomb exploded underneath a VIP stand at a stadium during Victory Day celebrations.
His death has sparked fears that the situation in Chechnya would further deteriorate amid a struggle for power by local clans.
The Kremlin has appointed Kadyrov's son Ramzan - who at 27 is too young to run in the election - as deputy head of Chechnya under former Russian banker Sergei Abramov, who is believed to exercise little influence in the region.
Ramzan headed his father's feared security service that has been accused of human rights violations, including abductions and murder, that Ramzan denies.
He has dismissed speculation that Chechnya may soon change its constitution in order to allow him to stand in the election.
Russia poured troops into Chechnya in 1999 in what was supposed to be a quick "anti-terror" operation, which quickly degenerated into a guerrilla conflict that simmers to this day.