More election tidbits

Anatoly Karpov has a couple of interview clips on the FIDE election,  made by  French grandmaster Robert Fontaine (who works for Europe echecs).  I give them below.  It appears that Karpov and his campaign team have decided to fight to the bitter end and actually have the vote count! (No doubt this is bad news for the Canadian representative -Hal Bond-who has tried to not disclose his hand up to now)

Karpov does not mention anything new in these clips, mostly re-hashing what he has been saying in interviews given to newspapers while on the campaign trail. Those readers who have not followed the campaign too closely will undoubtedly find the videos worthwhile.

There is one thing, however, that might cost Karpov as the weeks count down to the election in September.  Namely, his continuing to disregard that many countries in the so-called ‘third world’ already view his campaign as elitist, condescending and European-value based. Karpov’s use of the word ‘slavery’ (as in financial slavery) conjures up images of painful times in their history that many countries in the America’s, Africa and Asia want to forget.  And it plays into Ilyumzhinov’s hands because many federations are going to vote against Karpov simply because they are afraid that he wants to restructure the one country-one vote system in place inside FIDE.

There is no doubt that FIDE makes considerable income from service fees (ratings, international titles, dues,  etc) but until a better scheme appears for FIDE to earn operating capital, it should not be used so aggressively as a  whip in Karpov’s  campaign.   (Karpov has suggested  sponsorship as an alternative source of funding, but few believe that Karpov has anything concrete up his sleeve.)