The presidential elections in Chechnya will be held on October 5 with 11 candidates in the race.

"Moscow will respect the choice of Chechen people, whatever it would be," said Andrey A Starkov, Charge d' Affaires of Russia, quoting Sergey Yastrzhembsky, an aide of President Vladimir Putin.

Talking to journalists at the embassy, Starkov said reclining on national consensus, the newly elected authorities would further contribute to the stabilisation of the situation in Chechnya, to the revival of its social and economic fields and assurance of full-scale exercise of human rights.

He said the Russian government and the Chechen authorities intend to move firmly towards the political solution to the Chechen issue making "Chechnya a full legitimate constituent entity of the Russian Federation."

Starkov said the government is taking steps to ensure fair contest of all candidates, not rendering any assistance to any of them. All candidates will be given an equal share of newspaper space and airtime on TV for campaigning, he added.

About 200 observers from 12 international bodies will monitor the elections. The official invitations will be sent to representatives of Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), OIC, Arab League and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

The State Duma (parliament) and the Human Rights Commission under the President's office have already agreed to send observers to the polls.

The Russian envoy said the entire contingent of Chechnya police forces -about 15,000 soldiers and the army regiments would be deployed during the presidential election.

"This will be done because the militants' sponsors from abroad, including those from Al-Qaeda, allocated significant amounts of money to militants' leaders to disrupt the polls," he said.

Quoting Russian military sources, Starkov said separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov and Abu Valid received 3 million US dollar for the subversive purposes. Besides, large funds received by the rebels from drug trafficking would also be spent to foil the election.

He said the Chechen clergy rendered full support to the upcoming elections and promised to assist in all possible ways. The Muftis stress that the polls meet the norms of Islamic law and the holy Quran, ordaining the Muslims to decide by themselves who would rule them.

Alexy Goltyaev, Head of the Press Section and Chief of Protocol of the Embassy, was present.