Moscow’s Pick to Head Chechnya Bows Out, Fears Violence

The Kremlin-backed plan to elect a new leader of the southern republic of Chechnya suffered a blow Saturday when top candidate Ruslan I. Khasbulatov withdrew, saying the vote could lead to further bloodshed.

Khasbulatov, the former Speaker of the Russian Parliament and an ethnic Chechen, was the front-runner among four candidates for the post.

He told a news conference in the Chechen capital, Grozny, that if the Dec. 17 vote to elect a new leader were declared valid, it would lead “to a split in the republic and to bloodletting,” the Itar-Tass news agency reported.

Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin appealed Saturday to Chechens to vote in next week’s election.

“I’m sure you will elect a worthy person to the post of the republic’s head,” Yeltsin said in his appeal, which began and ended with greetings in the Chechen language.

“I will do everything I can to protect the people from arbitrariness and violence, to protect the fragile sprouts of peace,” Yeltsin pledged.

Rebel leader Dzhokar M. Dudayev, who was ousted from Grozny last February and remains in a mountain hide-out, has vowed that a valid election won’t take place until Russian troops withdraw.

In Moscow on Friday, Russia and the Kremlin-backed government in Chechnya signed a political accord giving the Caucasus republic some new freedoms. But the agreement denies Chechnya the full sovereignty demanded by separatist rebels, who were not involved in drafting the deal.