FIDE is a corrupt organization. The President of FIDE, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, is a despotic President of a small, impoverished country of which he has said, “Kalmykia is a Mongolian-speaking, Buddhist Republic…in Europe.” As GM Nigel Short points out in the article, “Tyranny,” in New In Chess 2014 #5, “The most revealing thing about Kirsan’s statement is that it is false. The dominant language in Kalmykia is Russian, and not Mongolian. Alas, it would soon becomes clear that a cavalier disregard for veracity is very much Kirsan’s hallmark…Misrepresentations, distortions, false promises and even downright lies all regularly flow from the lips of his cherubic face.”
Nigel continues, “Warning signs were all there for any who cared to notice. The announcement that the 1996 Kamsky-Karpov World Championship would take place in Saddam Hussein’s Baghdad should have jolted and worried even the most apathetic observer. Indeed, the backlash against this planned move was so great that Kirsan was obliged to recant and implausibly claim that the whole idea had been a joke. That same year, Hans Ree wrote (in New In Chess, issue 1 p.40-44) about Kirsan’s despotic abolition of the Kalmykian constitution. He also reported the detailed allegations of Larisa Yudina, editor of the opposition newspaper Sovietskaya Kalmykia, that Kirsan was looting the state cofers, In 1998, shortly before the Elista Olympiad, Ms. Yudina would be found murdered in a ditch, with multiple knife wounds. Two of Kirsan’s aides would be convicted of this horrific crime. Criticism of Ilyumzhinov could literally be fatal. By macabre coincidence, one chapter of Kirsan’s autobiography published that same year was entitled ‘It only takes two weeks to have a man killed.’
GM Short ends the article, written before the election, “After 19 years in office, the morally bankrupt Kirsan regime has shown that it will stop at nothing to remain in power. I have deliberately refrained from emphasising that Kirsan enjoys the full backing, with attendant diplomatic support, of his controversial President, Vladimir Putin. There is more than ample reason to vote for change without needing to take a stand on internal Russian politics.”
In the next issue of New In Chess, 2014 #6, the best chess magazine ever published, the title of Nigel’s article, written after the election, is “Long Walk to Freedom.” It begins, “Unless you are on the FIDE payroll, it is hard to take any positives out of the 2014 Presidental Election.”
After reading, “The election is held by secret ballot, so any attempt to break down support by region comes with the important caveat that no one can be absolutely certain how votes were cast…,” my thoughts drifted back to something written in the aforementioned piece, “The truth of the matter is that Kirsan is only certain to win one continent-America.”
How can this be? What kind of inducements would cause my continent to vote for such a reprehensible candidate? Did the US vote for this petty tyrant?
Concerning the role of Russian Czar Vladimir Putin in this Nigel writes, “Russian intervention had been a factor in previous elections, but to nowhere near the same degree. On this occasion, the entire diplomatic service had been mobilised to ensure a Kirsan victory. In several federations it was the decisive factor. Kasparov had known all along that he would be up against the machinery of the Russian state, but even he underestimated its force and how important this would become.”
In life, like chess, there is a winner and there is a loser. In this case the despotic dictators won; the Royal game lost.
Nigel ends the aftermath by writing, “Curiously, for a man who has been re-elected by a thumping margin, the position of Kirsan is perhaps the least secure of all. The smart money is now on him being replaced by Filatov well before 2018. There have been previous, abortive plots to remove Kirsan, even by his supposedly loyal lieutenants. Already on the 27th May 2013, Makropoulos and Vega were at the Ararat Park Hyatt Hotel in Moscow negotiating with David Kaplan, FIDE’s CEO of Development, on behalf of an un-named oligarch, to replace the ‘Kalmykian bullshitter.’ The proposed price? A cool $26 million.”
One glance at the price of petrol tells you that little man Putin is on his way out. A war is being waged between Rootin’ Tootin’ Putin and the rest of the world. It is an economic war and with every drop in the price at the pump another nail is driven into the coffin of the Russian economy. Putin is a dead man walking. This is great news for chess because when putrid Putin goes, so goes Kirsan the E.T.
It has been written that the World Human Chess Champion, Magnus Carlsen, agonized over signing the contract to defend his recently won championship over former World Human Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand. In the end he did sign on the dotted line. It would have been better if he had not gotten into bed with the Russian call girls, Vladie and Etta. The two former World Human Chess Champions were used and their reputations have been besmirched, while the credibility of the Royal game has been tarnished.
Armchair Warrior 