FIDE elections: business as usual?
SPRAGGETT ON CHESS
Since Karpov first officially announced his candidacy for the FIDE presidency in early March of this year, we chessplayers have been treated to a lot of colourful news reporting. The expressions ‘intrigue’, ‘cloak and dagger’, ‘mud-slinging’ ,‘distorting the truth’ and ‘little white lies’ come easily to mind as I search to comprehend what has, up to now, NOT really been a very transparent campaign by either the Karpov camp or the Kirsan camp.
How are we chess fans to understand the real issues of the FIDE campaigns, let alone try to place both candidates into any rational perspective, if both sides make claims and counter-claims about what should be essential and undeniable facts? For instance, is Karpov the official candidate of the Russian Chess Federation (RCF)–as he claims–or is Ilyumzhinov the official candidate–as he claims? This should be a no-brainer, but it is not!
And what about the FIDE rules about there only being allowed one candidate from Russia? We have not been treated to any legal interpretation of said regulations! (Where is a lawyer when you need one?) Instead, FIDE president Ilyumzhinov and RCF chairman Dvorkovich have both publically said that they personally have nothing against having 2 Russian candidates for the FIDE presidency. Meanwhile Karpov , on his campaign website (http://www.karpov2010.org/) claims that his (palace coup) nomination by the RCF essentially ends Ilyumzhinov’s campaign even before it begins—even though it was the French Chess Federation that originally nominated Karpov for president (and even insinuated that he was a member of the French Federation)! And it was Karpov himself who said in a Europe Echecs video that he was nominated for the French Federation!
So we have a right to be confused…because in any hotly disputed election (as in any war) the TRUTH is the first victim! And so far both candidates (Karpov and Ilyumzhinov) have proven themselves equal to the task at hand…to confuse all of us!
May 26, 2010
By Roland Oliphant
Russia Profile
Anatoly Karpov, chess grandmaster, former world champion and diligently a-political public figure, has found himself on a collision course with the Kremlin over the future of world chess. By standing for the Russian nomination for World Chess Federation (FIDE) president he has challenged the incumbent, President of the Republic of Kalmykia Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, and clashed with his ally, the high-ranking Kremlin aide Arkady Dvorkovich.
For newsroom editors across the world, the idea of Karpov “battling with the Kremlin” for the future of world chess was too good a headline to miss. But this struggle seems to be less about politics than about personal prestige, allegiances and somewhat opaque business relationships.
The scandal – by now well documented in the Russian and Western press – erupted on May 14, when the Russian Chess Federation (RCF) met in Moscow to elect its candidate for president of FIDE – the sport’s governing body.
A meeting of the RCF’s governing council at its usual venue elected Karpov. But Dvorkovich, who is chairman of the RFC’s advisory board, had already announced in April that Ilyumzhinov would be the Russian candidate. He immediately claimed that the meeting lacked a quorum and Karpov’s nomination was therefore “illegitimate.” Days later, personnel from a private security firm carrying a document signed by Dvorkovich evicted Chairman of the RCF Alexander Bach from his office and closed the group’s headquarters in Moscow.
Bitter disputes in professional bodies over electoral protocol and the interests of rival factions are not that uncommon in Russia – a similar civil war in the Russian Cinematographers’ Union finally led to a schism this April. But the employment of tactics more commonly associated with corporate raiding has raised the very good question of what on earth is at stake. Has the Kremlin decided to fire Ilyumzhinov as president of Kalmykia and offer him the FIDE crown as a consolation prize? Are there murky business connections at stake? Or is it, as so often in chess, simply about the egos of the main players?
And what players they are. Karpov is a grandmaster and former world champion from the halcyon days of the 1970s and 1980s, when, as he likes to remind voters, his battles with Garry Kasparov made headline news across the world. Ilyumzhinov, by contrast, is an eccentric self-made millionaire and republican president who was once touted as a potential future president of Russia.
And it is the personalities that make the contest so intriguing. Skeptics of the political conspiracy argue that Karpov is an instinctively conciliatory character. Unlike, say, Garry Kasparov, whose fiery temper is well-known in and outside the chess world, Karpov “is all about compromise,” said Mark Glukhovsky, chief editor of the Russian chess journal 64. And if he’s not the kind of man to go looking for a fight in any case, he almost certainly would not pick one with the Kremlin.
In marked contrast to Kasparov, who has effectively become a pariah in Russia since joining the radical democratic opposition, Karpov has conscientiously avoided politics almost entirely – and he seems keen to continue to. “Nothing interests me except chess,” he told Radio Liberty in an interview this week. “And Garry Kasparov, with whom we’re working, understands that.”
Karpov’s electoral platform is based on “modernization” – the favorite buzzword of President Dmitry Medvedev – and “change,” the beloved noun of Western electioneers from U.S. President Barack Obama to the new UK Prime Minister David Cameron.
Chess, Karpov lamented in his bid for nomination, is in crisis. Gone are the days when hundreds of foreign correspondents covered world championship matches between the likes of himself and Kasparov, or Boris Spassky and Bobby Fischer. The game is obscure, and world titles held in Sofia cannot compete with Paris, New York or Moscow. He accuses Ilyumzhinov of failing to exploit the potential of modern technology, allowing FIDE to be outrun on the Internet by private chess companies, and allowing the popularity and prominence of the game to flag. “It’s time for the professionals to take over,” he writes in his manifesto, in a reference to Ilyumzhinov’s unfortunate remark that for him chess is a “hobby.”
It’s a classic anti-incumbent campaign, attacking Ilyumzhinov’s record over the past 15 years as FIDE president and his more embarrassing gaffes – he has claimed to have been abducted by aliens and in a recent television appearance spoke about retiring to live in a monastery.
The thing is, Karpov is not the only one laying into the Kalmyk president’s eccentricities. The comments Karpov’s campaign gleefully refer to were made on the Vladimir Pozner show, a prime time interview slot on Russia’s state-owned Channel One – and he wasn’t treated especially kindly. “If you’re put on national television, on a state-run channel, and presented as not very healthy – a crazy guy – it’s not an accident,” said Nikolai Petrov, an expert on regional affairs at the Moscow Carnegie Center. The implication is that Ilyumzhinov has indeed fallen out of favor with the Kremlin.
But that doesn’t mean Dvorkovich, whose day job is as an economic advisor to president Medvedev, is acting on the orders of his boss. “I’m not sure what Dvorkovich’s interest in cooperation with Ilyumzhinov is, but it’s definitely an ongoing cooperation,” said Petrov.
Some rumors – and they are no more than rumors – suggest that the two have business links through the Mirax construction company, where Dvorkovich’s brother works as an adviser to the chairman. Others suggest the two may be plotting to divide the revenues of a proposed movement of the FIDE headquarters from Switzerland to Moscow. Glukhovsky, for his part, reckons the fight is really about power. “Whoever is president gets access to considerable administrative resources,” he said.
But then, maybe Dvorkovich simply has his own preference as a chess player. After all, his involvement with the RCF has hardly been idle, and he has personal reasons to care about the game – his father, Vladimir Dvorkovich, was a prominent Soviet Chess grandmaster who trained both Karpov and Kasparov.
And now? The vote itself will take place at the FIDE congress and Olympiad in the Siberian oil town of Khanty-Mansiysk in September. So far, Karpov and Ilyumzhinov are the only candidates.
No one knows who is going to win. Karpov boasts an impressive PR machine, New York-based campaign headquarters and the backing of major grandmasters including Kasparov and the UK’s Nigel Short. He also has endorsements from 16 national chess associations, not including the disputed Russian vote, including the American, English and Egyptian associations.
But Ilyumzhinov is not to be written off. “For Karpov the campaign is important because he has never been FIDE president. For Ilyumzhinov the situation is slightly different because he’s been president for 15 years and everyone knows his record,” said Glukhovsky.
It is likely that Karpov will get most (but not all) of Europe and the Americas. Ilyumzhinov will count on his wide base of support in the 3rd world countries, especially Africa, Asia and the Pacific rim countries. For Karpov to get any chance at all, he will need to chip away at that solid block of support that Kirsan has built up.
These past 2 weeks has seen the eclectic English grandmaster Nigel Short on tour in Africa trying to drum up support for Karpov. Nigel’s diverse talents make him uniquely qualified for this kind of role. If you can forgive him for his wicked british sense of humour, he might be able to have some sort of influence in reducing the majority that Ilyumzhinov will get from the African continent.
From the international press, we know that Nigel was in Angola last week , offering the president of the Angolan Chess Federation a vice-presidency in Karpov’s election. While not turned down, the Angolan wants to speak with the Ilyumzhinov representative before making up his mind. Perhaps it is because of this that Karpov announced that he intended to personally visit Africa in the immediate future.
And this week Short is in Uganda, giving a simultaneous (or several) to local chess fans. Apparently this is the first time that a grandmaster has ever visited Uganda! According to stats given on the FIDE website, Uganda has 20 rated players (of which only 4 are active). Chess is virtually dead there! The official website of the federation no longer exists.
In 2006 Uganda voted for Ilyumzhinov, but it is still an open question about which candidate it will support later this year. At the Dresden 2008 Olympiad, the Uganda team was prevented from participating because its federation had not paid FIDE its dues! However, earlier this year FIDE reconciled with Uganda when it sent a gift of 200 chess sets…if nothing else, we can all appreciated the irony of Nigel playing his simuls on sets that are a gift from Ilyumzhinov!
We also know this week that Malaysian businessman Dato Tan Chin Nam has accepted to be on the board of Karpov’s campaign. A very influential gentleman, this does not necessarily mean that Malaysia will give its vote to Karpov. Mr. Dato is getting well on in age and is no longer the force in Malaysian chess politics that he once was. Can we perhaps expect to see a visit by Karpov to Malaysia in the near future? My sources say that this is very possible….
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This past week former world champion Anatoli Karpov gave an interview on his candidacy where he responded to several questions. http://www.rferl.org/content/Interview_Anatoly_Karpov_On_The_Politics_Of_Chess/2052717.html The very first question was about Dvorkovich’s (now) controversial decision on April 21 to recommend Ilyumzhinov instead of Karpov as the Russian federation’s choice.
RFE/RL: Did Arkady Dvorkovich ever speak to you personally about this issue?
Karpov: No, never.
Never?? This seems very implausible (to me, atleast) given the way the Karpov campaign evolved from the very beginning.
Let’s try to put things into some perspective: Let us go back a few months. Ilyumzhinov has been president of FIDE for the past 15 years, is at the height of his popularity (despite what his critics may say) and the whole world just takes it as granted that he wants to be president for atleast another 15 years. Along comes Karpov, who knows very well that if he is to be candidate for the FIDE presidency then he must first get the nomination from the same federation as Ilyumzhinov (the Russian Chess Federation-RCF).
This is a BIG problem for Karpov’s candidacy! This would be a big problem for anyone who wanted to run against someone who is from the same country as themselves! Wouldn’t you expect that Karpov would contact the RCF first and try to –if not influence their decision–then at least evaluate their intentions? Dvorkovich is the top dog in the RCF, both he and Karpov are quite familiar with each other (if not friendly!). It seems to me that any intelligent person (and Karpov is very intelligent) would have first spoken with Dvorkovich. Did he? Wouldn’t you? According to Karpov (this week), he didn’t!
On March 13 of this year Karpov announced officially to the whole world that he is a candidate for the FIDE presidency. Take a look at this Europe echecs video.
So we have a right to be confused…because in any hotly disputed election (as in any war) the TRUTH is the first victim! And so far both candidates (Karpov and Ilyumzhinov) have proven themselves equal to the task at hand…to confuse all of us!
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http://www.russiaprofile.org/page.php?pageid=Politics&articleid=a1274900801
Most of the news reporting has been pure crap so far. The following article also is far from perfect but does have some redeeming features, notably it does not take sides nor does it try to disparage Ilyumzhinov. Perhaps because it is written by some journalist who is only trying to do his job. Roland Oliphant was born in England. In 2002 he escaped to Hungary, starting an enduring relationship with Eastern Europe. In 2006 he graduated from the University of Edinburgh with an M.A. in Philosophy and moved to Moscow, where he worked as an English Teacher and Editor for RIA Novosti before joining Russia Profile in 2008. His hobbies include travel, reading and the martial arts.
”Is the Battle for the FIDE Presidency About Chess, Politics, or Big, Big Egos?”
May 26, 2010
By Roland Oliphant
Russia Profile
Anatoly Karpov, chess grandmaster, former world champion and diligently a-political public figure, has found himself on a collision course with the Kremlin over the future of world chess. By standing for the Russian nomination for World Chess Federation (FIDE) president he has challenged the incumbent, President of the Republic of Kalmykia Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, and clashed with his ally, the high-ranking Kremlin aide Arkady Dvorkovich.
For newsroom editors across the world, the idea of Karpov “battling with the Kremlin” for the future of world chess was too good a headline to miss. But this struggle seems to be less about politics than about personal prestige, allegiances and somewhat opaque business relationships.
The scandal – by now well documented in the Russian and Western press – erupted on May 14, when the Russian Chess Federation (RCF) met in Moscow to elect its candidate for president of FIDE – the sport’s governing body.
A meeting of the RCF’s governing council at its usual venue elected Karpov. But Dvorkovich, who is chairman of the RFC’s advisory board, had already announced in April that Ilyumzhinov would be the Russian candidate. He immediately claimed that the meeting lacked a quorum and Karpov’s nomination was therefore “illegitimate.” Days later, personnel from a private security firm carrying a document signed by Dvorkovich evicted Chairman of the RCF Alexander Bach from his office and closed the group’s headquarters in Moscow.
Bitter disputes in professional bodies over electoral protocol and the interests of rival factions are not that uncommon in Russia – a similar civil war in the Russian Cinematographers’ Union finally led to a schism this April. But the employment of tactics more commonly associated with corporate raiding has raised the very good question of what on earth is at stake. Has the Kremlin decided to fire Ilyumzhinov as president of Kalmykia and offer him the FIDE crown as a consolation prize? Are there murky business connections at stake? Or is it, as so often in chess, simply about the egos of the main players?
And what players they are. Karpov is a grandmaster and former world champion from the halcyon days of the 1970s and 1980s, when, as he likes to remind voters, his battles with Garry Kasparov made headline news across the world. Ilyumzhinov, by contrast, is an eccentric self-made millionaire and republican president who was once touted as a potential future president of Russia.
And it is the personalities that make the contest so intriguing. Skeptics of the political conspiracy argue that Karpov is an instinctively conciliatory character. Unlike, say, Garry Kasparov, whose fiery temper is well-known in and outside the chess world, Karpov “is all about compromise,” said Mark Glukhovsky, chief editor of the Russian chess journal 64. And if he’s not the kind of man to go looking for a fight in any case, he almost certainly would not pick one with the Kremlin.
In marked contrast to Kasparov, who has effectively become a pariah in Russia since joining the radical democratic opposition, Karpov has conscientiously avoided politics almost entirely – and he seems keen to continue to. “Nothing interests me except chess,” he told Radio Liberty in an interview this week. “And Garry Kasparov, with whom we’re working, understands that.”
Karpov’s electoral platform is based on “modernization” – the favorite buzzword of President Dmitry Medvedev – and “change,” the beloved noun of Western electioneers from U.S. President Barack Obama to the new UK Prime Minister David Cameron.
Chess, Karpov lamented in his bid for nomination, is in crisis. Gone are the days when hundreds of foreign correspondents covered world championship matches between the likes of himself and Kasparov, or Boris Spassky and Bobby Fischer. The game is obscure, and world titles held in Sofia cannot compete with Paris, New York or Moscow. He accuses Ilyumzhinov of failing to exploit the potential of modern technology, allowing FIDE to be outrun on the Internet by private chess companies, and allowing the popularity and prominence of the game to flag. “It’s time for the professionals to take over,” he writes in his manifesto, in a reference to Ilyumzhinov’s unfortunate remark that for him chess is a “hobby.”
It’s a classic anti-incumbent campaign, attacking Ilyumzhinov’s record over the past 15 years as FIDE president and his more embarrassing gaffes – he has claimed to have been abducted by aliens and in a recent television appearance spoke about retiring to live in a monastery.
The thing is, Karpov is not the only one laying into the Kalmyk president’s eccentricities. The comments Karpov’s campaign gleefully refer to were made on the Vladimir Pozner show, a prime time interview slot on Russia’s state-owned Channel One – and he wasn’t treated especially kindly. “If you’re put on national television, on a state-run channel, and presented as not very healthy – a crazy guy – it’s not an accident,” said Nikolai Petrov, an expert on regional affairs at the Moscow Carnegie Center. The implication is that Ilyumzhinov has indeed fallen out of favor with the Kremlin.
But that doesn’t mean Dvorkovich, whose day job is as an economic advisor to president Medvedev, is acting on the orders of his boss. “I’m not sure what Dvorkovich’s interest in cooperation with Ilyumzhinov is, but it’s definitely an ongoing cooperation,” said Petrov.
Some rumors – and they are no more than rumors – suggest that the two have business links through the Mirax construction company, where Dvorkovich’s brother works as an adviser to the chairman. Others suggest the two may be plotting to divide the revenues of a proposed movement of the FIDE headquarters from Switzerland to Moscow. Glukhovsky, for his part, reckons the fight is really about power. “Whoever is president gets access to considerable administrative resources,” he said.
But then, maybe Dvorkovich simply has his own preference as a chess player. After all, his involvement with the RCF has hardly been idle, and he has personal reasons to care about the game – his father, Vladimir Dvorkovich, was a prominent Soviet Chess grandmaster who trained both Karpov and Kasparov.
And now? The vote itself will take place at the FIDE congress and Olympiad in the Siberian oil town of Khanty-Mansiysk in September. So far, Karpov and Ilyumzhinov are the only candidates.
No one knows who is going to win. Karpov boasts an impressive PR machine, New York-based campaign headquarters and the backing of major grandmasters including Kasparov and the UK’s Nigel Short. He also has endorsements from 16 national chess associations, not including the disputed Russian vote, including the American, English and Egyptian associations.
But Ilyumzhinov is not to be written off. “For Karpov the campaign is important because he has never been FIDE president. For Ilyumzhinov the situation is slightly different because he’s been president for 15 years and everyone knows his record,” said Glukhovsky.
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This past week the Ilyumzhinov camp finally opened a web site for its official campaign: http://www.onefide.com/ Up until now Kirsan had refused to use the FIDE site as a platform from which to campaign, a gesture that many find exemplary. However, it is not at all clear from the official site just how the campaign is going and in what direction. No doubt Kirsan’s extensive list of contacts developed during the past 15 years as head of FIDE is playing the fundamental role here.
The aim is world domination
It is likely that Karpov will get most (but not all) of Europe and the Americas. Ilyumzhinov will count on his wide base of support in the 3rd world countries, especially Africa, Asia and the Pacific rim countries. For Karpov to get any chance at all, he will need to chip away at that solid block of support that Kirsan has built up.
These past 2 weeks has seen the eclectic English grandmaster Nigel Short on tour in Africa trying to drum up support for Karpov. Nigel’s diverse talents make him uniquely qualified for this kind of role. If you can forgive him for his wicked british sense of humour, he might be able to have some sort of influence in reducing the majority that Ilyumzhinov will get from the African continent.
From the international press, we know that Nigel was in Angola last week , offering the president of the Angolan Chess Federation a vice-presidency in Karpov’s election. While not turned down, the Angolan wants to speak with the Ilyumzhinov representative before making up his mind. Perhaps it is because of this that Karpov announced that he intended to personally visit Africa in the immediate future.
Nigel in Angola. Only a ‘maybe’.
And this week Short is in Uganda, giving a simultaneous (or several) to local chess fans. Apparently this is the first time that a grandmaster has ever visited Uganda! According to stats given on the FIDE website, Uganda has 20 rated players (of which only 4 are active). Chess is virtually dead there! The official website of the federation no longer exists.
In 2006 Uganda voted for Ilyumzhinov, but it is still an open question about which candidate it will support later this year. At the Dresden 2008 Olympiad, the Uganda team was prevented from participating because its federation had not paid FIDE its dues! However, earlier this year FIDE reconciled with Uganda when it sent a gift of 200 chess sets…if nothing else, we can all appreciated the irony of Nigel playing his simuls on sets that are a gift from Ilyumzhinov!
”The Uganda Chess Federation is highly grateful to FIDE for this noble and benevolent gesture and pledges its commitment to ensuring that the boards will be put to good use in fulfillment of FIDE’s objective”. Vianney Luggya , Uganda Chess Federation; (from FIDE website)
We also know this week that Malaysian businessman Dato Tan Chin Nam has accepted to be on the board of Karpov’s campaign. A very influential gentleman, this does not necessarily mean that Malaysia will give its vote to Karpov. Mr. Dato is getting well on in age and is no longer the force in Malaysian chess politics that he once was. Can we perhaps expect to see a visit by Karpov to Malaysia in the near future? My sources say that this is very possible….
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Karpov: little white lies?
This past week former world champion Anatoli Karpov gave an interview on his candidacy where he responded to several questions. http://www.rferl.org/content/Interview_Anatoly_Karpov_On_The_Politics_Of_Chess/2052717.html The very first question was about Dvorkovich’s (now) controversial decision on April 21 to recommend Ilyumzhinov instead of Karpov as the Russian federation’s choice.
RFE/RL: Did Arkady Dvorkovich ever speak to you personally about this issue?
Karpov: No, never.
Never?? This seems very implausible (to me, atleast) given the way the Karpov campaign evolved from the very beginning.
Let’s try to put things into some perspective: Let us go back a few months. Ilyumzhinov has been president of FIDE for the past 15 years, is at the height of his popularity (despite what his critics may say) and the whole world just takes it as granted that he wants to be president for atleast another 15 years. Along comes Karpov, who knows very well that if he is to be candidate for the FIDE presidency then he must first get the nomination from the same federation as Ilyumzhinov (the Russian Chess Federation-RCF).
This is a BIG problem for Karpov’s candidacy! This would be a big problem for anyone who wanted to run against someone who is from the same country as themselves! Wouldn’t you expect that Karpov would contact the RCF first and try to –if not influence their decision–then at least evaluate their intentions? Dvorkovich is the top dog in the RCF, both he and Karpov are quite familiar with each other (if not friendly!). It seems to me that any intelligent person (and Karpov is very intelligent) would have first spoken with Dvorkovich. Did he? Wouldn’t you? According to Karpov (this week), he didn’t!
On March 13 of this year Karpov announced officially to the whole world that he is a candidate for the FIDE presidency. Take a look at this Europe echecs video.
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Curiously, Karpov has the French Chess Federation nominate him! From his interview with the French grandmaster Robert Fontaine, we can ascertain that Karpov previously must have had some communication with the Russian Chess Federation about his candidacy: he mentions that the RCF is ”still thinking” about their decision…and that this is not his problem, but the RCF’s problem!
It seems to me that Karpov was –if not already at war with the RCF leadership over the nomination question– anticipating not getting nominated. Clearly Karpov was planning on running for FIDE president regardless of what the RCF decided!
This could explain the sudden hostilities that soon broke out in the media between Dvorkovich and Karpov, or more precisely, the aggression by Karpov towards Dvorkovich. In Dvorkovich’s press conference on April 21 where he announced that Ilyumzhinov was going to get the RCF’s nomination (a written translation is on chessbase http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=6272 ) he also opened the door to Karpov getting nominated by another federation, that is that the RCF would not oppose 2 Russians running.
”Anatoly Evegenievich has the right to be nominated by other national federations, and I welcome the competition, but in this case he can not be considered a candidate for the RCF” said Dvorkovich
Karpov, who up to that point had been running a pretty lame duck campaign that barely got any coverage in the non-chess media, escalated the rhetoric with a vitriolic attack–very uncharacteristic of Karpov– also published on the chessbase link above:
”I must state that the world chess community has been cheated in the most blatant manner…(Dvorkovich’s dicision) is a broad and malicious distortion of a campaign that has only just begun…(Ilyumzhinov and Dvorkovich) are ready to sacrifice the prestige of our country to achieve their disreputable goals, displaying contempt for law and public opinion.”–Karpov
Immediately the non-chess media became interested in Karpov’s campaign. And has continued to to this day. Infact, I can not remember ever seeing any chess election get such free publicity! The secret of Karpov’s campaign success: who was it that said: ” He who is not for me is against me.”?
In any case, I hope that before the campaign is over that Karpov will explain his communications with the RCF (Dvorkovich?) before his March 13 public official announcement of his candidacy. Dvorkovich is an individual who has an impeccable reputation amongst Russian grandmasters and does not deserve to become cannon fodder for anyone.
Dvorkovich (far right, with crossed arms) Morozevich, Kramnik, Svidler and Leko
Hal Bond attended the May 17 New York VIP-party and had an opportunity to speak with Kasparov. On May 19th on http://www.chesstalk.com/ Bond wrote this: ”Kasparov told me in New York that Karpov’s initial proposal to the Russian Fed was a joint nomination.”
Little by little the entire story will come out. Ofcourse, I will not change my support for Karpov as the next FIDE president regardless of what imperfections Karpov might have as a person. However, many of my colleagues feel that Karpov should be held to a higher standard than Ilyumzhinov, if only because he represents not just ‘change’ but our hopes and aspirations for a better FIDE.
SPRAGGETT ON CHESS