Chechnya's parliament today rubber-stamped Russian President Vladimir Putin's nomination of a regional strongman as the new president of the troubled province.
A joint session of parliament's two chambers elected Ramzan Kadyrov with 56 supporting votes, one against and one abstention.
"We will continue the great course started by my father and president of the country Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin," the stocky, bearded Mr Kadyrov told Russian television after the parliamentary vote. "If not us, who will restore our republic?"
Mr Kadyrov, who controls his own security force, has been de facto ruler of Chechnya despite holding the secondary position of prime minister. His father Akhmad, a Moscow-installed president, was killed by a bomb blast in 2005.
In Moscow the European commissioner for human rights, Thomas Hammarberg, called for a commission to be set up to discover the fate of the estimated 2,600 people who disappeared in Chechnya without trace during two wars since 1994.
Two Russian military campaigns to quell Chechnya's independence drive have reduced the mountainous southern region bordering Georgia to ruins. Russia says the situation in Chechnya is stabilising despite sporadic fighting between rebels and pro-Moscow forces.