At a session on 5 August, the Chechen government made final amendments to, and then approved, the republic's new draft constitution. Participants agreed to remove from the draft the reference to Chechnya's sovereignty; administration head Akhmed-hadji Kadyrov noted that the sovereignty granted to Chechnya and other federation subjects by former President Boris Yeltsin "turned into war, poverty, and destruction," according to "The Moscow Times" on 6 August. Added to the draft was a stipulation that presidential candidates must have lived in Chechnya for the past 10 years, a requirement that may have been directed specifically against former Russian parliament speaker Ruslan Khasbulatov, who claims to enjoy wide support among the Chechen population. The draft constitution will be published for public discussion and submitted to a referendum in late October. Kadyrov said presidential elections could then be held in the spring or summer of 2003. (RFE/RL)