As of 15 August, Chechnya\'s Central Election Commission had registered 13 candidates for the 5 October presidential election. Applications for registration by pensioner Khasan Dadaev and by Shamil Buraev, head of the Achkhoi-Martan District administration, were rejected on the grounds that the two men failed to provide the required information about the bank accounts from which they intended to fund their respective campaigns. On 16 August, Chechen administration head Akhmed-hadji Kadyrov, the clear favorite in the ballot, said Chechen militants are seeking to derail the ballot in a bid to preserve Chechen President Aslan Maskhadov\'s political influence, according to Interfax. But Russian journalist and Chechnya specialist Anna Politkovskaya wrote in \"Novaya gazeta\" on 15 August that armed thugs commanded by Kadyrov\'s son, Ramazan, are threatening rival candidates. One of those candidates, Aslanbek Aslakhanov, who represents Chechnya in the State Duma, said in a 15 August interview with \"Nezavisimaya gazeta\" that Kadyrov\'s private army has at its disposal every kind of weapon imaginable, with the exception of atomic bombs and Topol intercontinental ballistic missiles. (RFE/RL)