CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM COUNCIL FORMED.

On 25 July, it was announced that a consultative council had been formed at the office of the pro-Moscow chief of administration of the Chechen Republic, Akhmad Kadyrov. The council is to be chaired by the head of administration of the Grozny (Djohar) Village District, Shakhid Dzhamaladayev. The task of the council will be to prepare the ground for convoking a Congress of the Chechen People or a Constitutional Conference or some other form of popular representation to draft a new constitution for Chechnya and to prepare democratic elections. “It is fully possible,” the pro-regime online daily Strana.ru added, “that it will be deemed advisable not to adopt a new constitution but to introduce corrections into the present [Soviet-era] basic law of the Chechen-Ingush ASSR of 1978” (Strana.ru, July 25). On July 27, Strana.ru reported that Akhmad Kadyrov had announced that elections will not be held in Chechnya “until two years following the conclusion of the counterterrorist operation and the return to the republic of those who had left it.” Kadyrov underscored that President Putin had signaled his agreement with this position at the time of their recent meeting in the Kremlin.