Chechnya's new leader vowed on Monday to rebuild the shattered region and crush extremists after winning an election condemned by a rights group as a show stage-managed by Moscow.
Alu Alkhanov, the former local interior minister who was handpicked for the job by Russian President Vladimir Putin, won 73.48 percent of Sunday's vote according to preliminary results, the election commission said.
The tall, moustachioed Alkhanov said his administration would focus on reviving Chechnya's economy, shattered by war, and creating 150,000 new jobs in the next five years.
"We are one team and together we will solve all pressing problems... come here (Chechnya) at the end of 2005 and you will see that a lot is fresh, a lot is new," Alkhanov was quoted by Itar-Tass news agency as saying at his first news conference as president.
"We will not forget about the fighters. They have, and still are forming criminal gangs that must be fought until they are wiped out," he told Dubai-based Al Arabiya television.
The poll took place against a backdrop of heavy fighting in Chechnya and two nearly simultaneous plane crashes last week that killed 90 people elsewhere in Russia. Investigators said both were brought down by bombs and many Russians blamed Chechen rebels. Moderate separatists denied any link to the crashes.
The International Helsinki Federation rights group said the election could be neither free nor fair in such conditions.
The European Union presidency - the Dutch government - also expressed regret that security concerns had made it impossible to organise an international observer mission.
Election officials said the poll was free and fair.
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