“You have to hand it to the man! He has managed to out-finesse each and every of his political rivals since first taking control of FIDE back in November 1995 in Paris.
Today it very much seems that he is going to be the big favourite , once more, at the FIDE elections to be held at during the Chess Olympiad in Batumi, Georgia. According to my own research figures, Kirsan is heading towards a 70% support level, sweeping almost all of Asia and Africa, with a new strategy that accepts that his support in the America’s might decline to 50%. Europe’s vote will be , once more, irrelevant, once all the votes are counted.”
The post culminates with:
“It is curious that while all of the recent FIDE presidential board drama has unfolded, not a single top player has voiced any criticism of Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, or expressed any public opinion to support Makro and gang. Only the right-wing chess media (Chess.com, ChessBase, ChessDom, etc) have expressed any support for Makro.
From what I have been able to find out, most top players believe that Kirsan will be re-elected, and by a large margin, regardless of who runs against him. Once more, it seems, there is a large divide in the chess community and its self-elected ‘journalists’!”
To be continued…(probably tomorrow when there should be some news coming out of Moscow)
Until reading Kevin’s post I was unaware there were different “wings” of the Chess media. I cannot help but wonder what “chess media” constitutes the “left-wing?”
I began my quest to learn more about the Chess MSM (Main Street Media) and the difference between the ‘left’ or ‘right factions of World Chess, and what defines ‘left’ or ‘right’, and who belongs to each group, if there is a “group.”
First stop on the internet highway was http://www.startpage.com. I was, unfortunately, unable to find elucidation…but something unexpected was discovered at the FIDE website, which obviously flew under my radar.
FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov urged to resign
By Siranush Ghazanchyan 09 Apr 2018
The FIDE Presidential Board voted 14 to 1 with no abstentions to urge President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov to resign.
The issue was discussed during a meeting in Minsk, Belarus over the weekend.
FIDE said earlier that its Swiss bank accounts would be closed after its president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov was accused of facilitating transactions on behalf of the Syrian government.
Ilyumzhinov was added to a US Treasury Department sanctions list in 2015 for his alleged dealings with the Assad government.
The senior management of the bank extended the deadline from the original 28th February, 2018 to 30th April, 2018, but was unwilling to extend until the FIDE elections on 3rd October, 2018.
The Presidential Board recognized the dire situation and passed the following resolution.
“Dear Kirsan
The Presidential Board has resolved that:
In the light of:
a) The imminent withdrawal of FIDE’s banking facilities by UBS,
b) The inability of FIDE to obtain replacement banking facilities while you remain nominal President and
c) subject to US Treasury Department sanctions,
d) The consequent severe difficulties facing FIDE in funding its obligations and its commitments to the chess family,
e) The adverse publicity that reflects badly on FIDE’s reputation and undermines the confidence of all those who are or would be involved in chess,
That in the interests of the organization:
You should resign with immediate effect.
The resolution has been signed by FIDE General Secretary Abraham Tolentino, Adrian Siegel, Treasurer Vice-presidents Georgios Makropoulos, Martha Fierro, Herbert Bastian, Mohammed Kambuzia, Beatriz Marinello, D.V. Sundar, Khalifa Al-Hitmi, Israel Gelfer, Boris Kutin, Gulkiz Tulay, Honorary Vice-Presidents Javier Ochoa and Mario Ramirez, President of Americas Jorge Vega, President of ECU Zurab Azmaiparashvili,
Chess is not played in a vacuum; t takes place on the stage of the world. The “chess moves” of powerful world leaders affect not only players of the Royal game, but often everyone in the world, as was the case when the mentally deranged Adolf Hitler led the world into what is now known as “World War II,” when Germany invaded Poland on false pretense. George Dubya did the same when the Bushwhackers invaded Iraq ostensibly looking for “weapons of mass destruction.” Then Dubya the Dummy made fun of We The People, and played US for chumps when, “During the annual Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner this week, Bush presented a slide show of quirky photographs from inside the White House. In one, the president is looking under furniture in the Oval Office.”
This has to be seen to be believed, and with modern technology, it can be seen right here. See below…
GM Kavalek writes this about Soviet GM Vladimir Simagin, “A few moments earlier, she met Vladimir Simagin pacing back and forth in the lobby of the Polish hotel in Polanica Zdroj, repeating:”Stupid people, stupid people, stupid people….” The Moscow grandmaster explained to her that Soviet tanks crossed into Czechoslovakia overnight. It was August 21, 1968. “The night would not be short,” predicted the Czech poet Karel Kryl in one of his songs.”
I remember it well because that day, August 21, 1968, was my eighteenth birthday. On that day I became eligible to be drafted, and the leaders of my country, whom I think of as Fools In Power (F.I.P.’s), were sending young men to die needlessly in the rice paddies of Viet Nam in what can only be described as internecine warfare. The “Ruskies”, as they were called, sending tanks into another country only increased the chances that I would be called upon to “gear up” to fight in yet another World War, possibly the last such war. What these F.I.P.’s decide has an effect on people individually, as can be seen by what GM Kavalek next writes about the peace loving Simagin.
“As fate would have it, I played Simagin in the penultimate round and I knew that the man across the board disagreed with the Soviet occupation. He was a chess philosopher believing that violence has no place in our lives and it is best to leave it on the chessboard. We played nervously, exchanged a lot of pieces until we were left only with my rook against his knight. We sensed that in an absurd, symbolic way the single rook was fighting against thousands of Soviet tanks. Eventually, we agreed to a draw, but the invasion broke his heart. Simagin died of a heart attack during the tournament in Kislovodsk on September 25, 1968 at the age of 49.”
“For months, Ilyumzhinov had shamelessly used FIDE resources to campaign and go around the world, but by the time August came around and the campaign moved to Tromso, it had become clear that the cause was all but lost as a well-funded professionally-run team had no chance in a world where Russia had thrown its considerable diplomatic muscle behind their Russian colleague and together with other incumbents were prepared to ignore all decorum and rules.
A case in point was Asia where Team Kasparov had 28 sure votes and was looking to reach 32, a huge win with 48 at stake. But with Russian intervention, Mongolia, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar were lost through a combination of proxies being taken or delegates replaced!
Then the incumbent Asia President, Sheikh Sultan bin Khalifah Al Nahyan from UAE adopted similar tactics as well as considerable largesse to ensure a united Arab vote and naturally India and the majority of that sub-continent also fell in line, again with liberal taking of proxies and change of delegates, some like Afghanistan even having its Federation administratively removed.
Closer home and very sadly and shamefully, Malaysia went back on its promise, Tan Sri Ramli Ngah Talib sacrificed his own Deputy President and Secretary by going back on supporting him in a position on the Asia ticket and Indonesia’s vote was even stolen, its delegate showing up in vain at the ballot box.
While Africa rose as promised, only beaten 20-22 through use of proxies, it was the same continued whitewash in Latin America and the Caribbean where so many delegates are existing FIDE officials despite not living or enjoying citizenship of the countries they represent. And Europe, which traditionally threw its weight against dictatorship, showed that they were tired of always being on the losing side.”
If it is true that the pen is mightier than the sword, then GM Kavalek strikes a mighty blow with these words, “In December 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed and ceased to exist. It was split into many countries, and that didn’t go over well with Vladimir Putin. As soon as he came to power, he plotted how to get back the Soviet territories. And this led to the current situation. Russia is at war again. The armor and the little green men Vladimir Putin sent to Ukraine this year to annex Crimea and to carve up the mainland were also without Russian insignias.
Russian tanks tend to invade at night as if ashamed to be seen. Their favorite time for invasions seems to be August (Czechoslovakia 1968, Georgia 2008, Ukraine 2014) or during the Olympic Games (Georgia 2008, Ukraine 2014) when the world is distracted. They come under the pretense of “brotherly” or “humanitarian” help. They even use chess strategies in their action: the principle of two weaknesses – creating threats in two separate places – is applied in the Ukraine as we speak.
Putin helped Kirsan Ilyumzhinov to win the FIDE presidential campaign. They announced together that the next world championship match between Magnus Carlsen and Vishy Anand will take place in November in Sochi. Carlsen, now playing the Sinquefield Cup, has till Sunday to accept, although the conditions of the match are far from clear. FIDE already shaved one million dollars off the previous match budget.
Ilyumzhinov is staging other major events in the former Soviet territories. The Chess Olympiad in 2016 will be in Baku, Azerbaijan and in 2018 in Batumi, Georgia. Grand Prix tournaments – important qualification events for the world championship – are scheduled for Moscow, Baku and Tashkent, Uzbekistan. There is also another one in Tehran, Iran, but it is hard to imagine the American Hikaru Nakamura playing there. Or for that matter the Armenian Levon Aronjan playing in Baku. And some of the events will be played while Putin is aiming his guns at Ukraine.”
Rootin’ Tootin’ Putin was best described by NY Times op-ed columnist David Brooks in his September 1, 2014 column titled, “The Revolt of the Weak.” “What we’re seeing around the world is a revolt of the weak. There are certain weak movements and nations, beset by internal contradictions, that can’t compete if they play by the normal rules of civilization. Therefore, they are conspiring to blow up the rule book.
The world would have been a better place if Adolf Hitler had been stopped before coming to power. That is not possible with Putin because he is in power. But he still can, and should, be stopped, by any means necessary.
Armchair Warrior 