By Thomas Grove
GROZNY, Russia, Dec 21 (Reuters) - Dagmein Khaseinovabeams with pride recalling the day her Chechen village,devastated a decade ago in a war launched by Vladimir Putin,gave the Russian ruler's party nearly 100 percent support in aparliamentary vote this month.
Her little village of Mekhketi, she said, is even on the wayto winning the cash prize she says authorities have promised for the polling station registering the biggest turnout.
"(We've) already won the regional competition. In a few dayswe'll hear whether we won throughout all of Chechnya,"Khaseinova, 53, said, wearing a traditional Chechen scarf overher head and squinting in the cold mountain air.
"The organizers of the polling station have been promisedsome kind of prize money if they win," she adds, hiding a smile.
Putin's United Russia recorded a higher percentage of votesin predominantly Muslim Chechnya, where federal troops foughttwo wars since the fall of the Soviet Union, than anywhere elsein the country. Official results show support at 99.5 percentand voter turnout of 99.4 percent.
Nationwide, the party won just under half the votes,securing a slim majority in the State Duma. Even that outcome,critics said, was the result of ballot stuffing and fraud.Countless complaints have been filed; but not in Chechnya
"United Russia is the party of Putin, and Chechnya wouldnever vote for Putin," said one middle-aged resident of theregional capital of Grozny, who declined to give his name forfear of retribution. "In the mind of every Chechen he isassociated with the bombing that destroyed Grozny and othercities all over the region,"
"Voting for Putin is about as absurd as any vote with a 99percent outcome," he said.
Regarding the competition between polling stations, the headof Chechnya's Central Election Committee Ismail Baikhanov saidthat a competition had been organised, but only with the aim of"informing local populations, the technical equipping of pollingstations and visual campaigning".
International monitors were out in force on election day inmuch of Russia, and say the vote was slanted in favour of UnitedRussia and marred by numerous instances of ballot stuffing.
But they did not observe the poll in Chechnya or the rest ofthe North Caucasus because of security concerns over aninsurgency, rooted in past wars, being waged in the region.
Militants want to throw off Russian rule and create anIslamist state.
Russia sent troops into Chechnya in late 1994 to try tocrush a drive for independence. Much of Grozny was flattened inheavy fighting but the army struggled to quell separatist rebelsfighting a guerrilla war in the mountains.
"DON'T WAG YOUR TONGUE!"
When Putin launched a second war in 1999 that establishedfederal control over Chechnya after a period of de factoindependence, Makhketi in Chechnya's Vedeno region saw some ofthe fiercest fighting.
A little over a decade later, a left-over United Russiaelection poster flaps in the wind over the quiet village squarewith a huge picture of Chechnya's smiling leader Ramzan Kadyrovdonning a construction worker's hat.
Locals say Kadyrov's second wife hails from a family in thevillage. Kadyrov says that although he accepts polygamy as aMuslim practise, he has only one wife.
His strict rule has sparked accusations of human rightsviolations, say rights groups, including extra-judicialdetention and torture. Few people, though, dare to talk abouttheir experiences for fear of retribution.
Villager Daudov Vasady, 79, said he had no choice but tovote for United Russia.
"My wife and I, we voted for United Russia. If our (leaderKadyrov) votes for United Russia then we have to as well," hesaid.
"If I hadn't voted, if others wouldn't have voted, thenpeople would have noticed and it would have created problems,"he said, refusing to explain futher.
As another villager speaks, a blue car carrying three mendrives past. One shouts from the car: "Don't wag your tongueabout anything personal!"
GIVEN UP MONITORING
On the popular Caucasian Knot internet site, a blogger whowas identified as lamro95 says all the teachers in the city werecalled into work on the day of the elections to make sure theyvoted.
"An acquaintance of mine voted three times in the samepolling station. Since the stations were in Chechen schools,teachers voted several times."
Others say the key to the results was not in the force usedto make people vote, but in ballot stuffing.
Human rights workers say they have given up monitoringelections. They say polling station workers told them they hadstayed up late into the night to fill ballot boxes with UnitedRussia votes long after polling stations had closed.
"We didn't monitor the elections because we knew there wasno point to it," said an independent rights worker who refusedto allow his name or the title of his organisation to bepublished for fear of retribution.
"The turnout will always be 99 percent and the number ofvotes (for the ruling party) will always reach 99 percent. Weshould simply stop the elections and save everyone a lot ofmoney."
The day after the election, Chechnya's voting commission wasforced to raise the number of eligible voters in the republic,after the number of ballots cast exceeded the registered voternumber by some 2,000 votes.
The head of Chechnya's voting committee Baikhanov said theoriginal number of voters -- 608,797 -- was already six monthsold when it was announced as the number of voters on Dec. 2, twodays before the election.
"Since that time a number of people reached voting age, andthey cast their ballots. There were also those who voted withabsentee ballots, and there were military who have since come toour region" he said.
POLITICS VS REAL LIFE
Isa Khadjimuradov, who was until recently the leader of theleft-leaning Just Russia party in Chechnya, said he had receivedan awkward phone call from his party's headquarters in Moscowthe day after the election.
Why, he was asked, did the official results show that some90 percent of the party's 12,000 members had cast their ballotsfor another party?
"You can't look at the situation in Chechnya in the samecontext as you look at the situation in the rest of Russia," said Khadjimuradov, who wore a traditional Chechen costume,including a hat made from baby lambskin.
"Politics is not thought of here as real life. They affectthe authorities to some degree, but nonetheless, politics, thepolitical process is not really reflected in the lives of normalpeople," he said.
Khadjimuradov carries an iPhone displaying a picture ofhimself with Kadyrov, although they are from different parties.
Many Chechens say Kadyrov, a rebel who became a Kremlinloyalist, is the engine for United Russia's performance.
He came to power three years after his father, the region'sfirst Moscow-backed leader, was killed by separatists in 2004and has enjoyed a steady flow of Russian funds that he has usedto rebuild Grozny.
Across the city, United Russia flags flutter along the sideof the road, next to penants bearing the colours of the Chechenand Russian flags. Pictures of a young, austere-looking VladimirPutin stare down at motorists across the small region.
Glitzy construction projects loom above the mainthoroughfare named Putin Prospect. Above a giant New Year's treein central Grozny, red lights spell out: "Thank You Ramzan ForGrozny".
Some local residents say Kadyrov uses the money to furtherhis own personal ambitions and establish a cult of personalityin the region, while channeling money and jobs to his own Benoiclan, the largest and most powerful in Chechnya.
At a cafe in Grozny, Khadjimuradov's friends - otherfunctionaries in government offices - debated whether Kadyrov ismore like Peter the Great or Caliph Uthman, the Muslim leaderwho brought Islam to neighbouring Dagestan in the 7th century.
"Kadyrov is a builder. He has a vision like Peter the Greatdid," said Khadjimuradov.
Political analysts say there is real popularity for UnitedRussia among the people who have benefited from Moscow's fundsand recognise the importance of loyalty to the Kremlin whichresults in heavy state funding.
"The support he enjoys from Russia is one of the fundamentalbases for stability in the region and the reason why he canexercise so much authority ... So he has a reason to bepersonally thankful to Putin," said Yevgeny Minchenko, directorof the International Institute of Political Analysis in Moscow.
In exchange for clamping down on Islamist insurgents, humanrights groups say Moscow ignores accusations of rights abusessuch as extra-judicial kidnappings and police torture.
The logic follows that as long as the region remains quietMoscow turns a blind eye to violations of Russia's secularconstitution as Kadyrov boosts his own authority by imposing hisown version of radical Islam.
SHARIA COURT
The North Caucasus region as a whole saw support for UnitedRussia much higher than in most other regions.
Neighbouring Dagestan and Ingushetia both showed UnitedRussia support above 90 percent.
Idris Abadiev, a former deputy in the parliament inIngushetia, and leaders of other local clans say the vote was falsified in Ingushetia.
They complained to Ingushetia's Islamic court, which localssay operates unofficially under the regional Mufti. There theydecided to sue Ingushetia leader Yunus-Bek Yevkurov and theregional election committee head Musa Yevloyev.
"To protect the interests and the rights of our own people,we have to pick our own deputies to enter parliament, not thosewho have been assigned to us," said Abadiev, speaking in hishouse outside of the city of Nazran.
A combination of corruption, religious militancy and clanloyalties have inflamed the insurgency in the North Caucasuswhich President Dmitry Medvedev has called Russia's biggestdomestic security threat.
Nearly 700 people have been killed in the first 11 months ofthis year in violence between security officials and militants,says the Caucasian Knot, which monitors violence.
"I didn't vote because it doesn't matter how you fill outyour voting ballot. Putin will always be in power. Putin doesn'trespect our laws, the laws of Shariah that we want here," said26-year-old Malik Kastoyev. (Editing by Timothy Heritage)