Local Media To Print Chechen Constitution Drafts Early December

Drafts of the Constitution of the Chechen Republic will be published in local media early next December, Akhmar Zavgayev, who represents the Chechen regional government in Russia's upper house of parliament, the Federation Council, disclosed to RIA Novosti. He said the drafts, which will be submitted to a referendum, are already drawn up and propose sweeping reorganizations of the government. Depending on the draft preferred, the models proposed are a parliamentary or a presidential republic or a ruling council representing all of the Chechen teipy, or extended families. Zavgayev himself favors a presidential republic modelled on the Russian federal government. He vehemently opposes the teip representation because he says it "would curtail the rights of other ethnic groups including the ethnic Russians and Nogai living in Chechnya." Should the parliamentary option be taken, whether by the majority of Chechen voters or not, Zavgayev feels the leader of a regional legislature has to be elected by popular vote. Zavgayev said the Chechen government is busily preparing the referendum on the Chechen Constitution and its leader Akhmad Kadyrov has been holding meetings with Chechen Diaspora in Russia's other territories. He added that not only the republic's residents, but also everyone who has had to leave the war-torn region in the last few years would be eligible to vote in the referendum. The latter will be able to cast their votes in any of the 50 regions of Russia where representative offices of the Chechen regional government have been opened.