26/07/2004 (Agence Europe) - The presidential elections planned for Chechnya on 29 August are "turning into a farce" declared the EPP-ED European Parliament group's president, Hans-Gert Pöttering in a press statement. The latter called on the European Commission and the Council of the EU to question president Putin on the matter. The CDU MEP pointed out that the central electoral commission had recorded seven candidates but that it had already excluded two of them: Sura Magomadowa (giving the reason as the lack of credibility concerning the signatures received by the candidate) and the Moscovite businessman Malik Saidullajew, "the only rival having a chance of succeeding against the minister of the interior Alu Alchanow" (because his passport indicates his place of birth as "Alchan-Yurt, Chechnya), hen at the time the village of Alchan-Yurt was part of the autonomous Soviet Republic of Chechnya-Inguchia).