Sunday 1 July 2018

And Kirsan drops out

In what was seen as an inevitable move, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov has announced he is not contesting the 2018 FIDE Presidential election. Once Arkady Dvorkovich announced his candidacy it was assumed that Kirsan was finished, and the decision by the Russian Chess Federation to endorse Dvorkovich nailed the coffin shut.
The race is now a three cornered contest, with Short, Makropoulus and Dvorkovich still in the running. July 3 is the date for the tickets to be submitted, but all three campaigns have announced their candidates. From this part of the world Paul Spiller (NZ) is part of the Short ticket, as a potential FIDE Vice-President.
Spiller, who is the Oceania Zone President, is also being challenged for that role by Jamie Kenmure. Kenmure has built up his connections with some of the Oceania federations, and then used their votes to curry favour with the current FIDE administration. It would be shame if such behaviour is rewarded come October, but this is politics FIDE style (even if some FIDE insiders have expressed a vehement dislike for Kenmure).

(** Disclaimer: I am on the current Oceania Chess Confederation Executive and am supporting Paul Spiller in the Zonal election)

2 comments:

NigelTheSpoiler? said...

If it's a 3-way, I guess the procedure will look like: Vote in Round 1 with no clear majority, Nigel Freeman (or whomever is chairing) provides his usual intonation "Would anyone like to withdraw?", and ...

Graham Clayton said...

Were all three tickets submitted by the July 3 deadline?