Tuesday, 29 June 2010 14:31
Athens, 29 June 2010

Announcement on the forthcoming FIDE elections

The FIDE Secretariat announces that the following Presidential Tickets and Continental Presidents have submitted their candidacies to the FIDE office by 28 June 2010.

Concerning the FIDE elections, the Russian Chess Federation (RCF) informed FIDE on 28 June 2010 that the Supervisory Board of the RCF, during its meeting of 28 June, confirmed the letter of its Chairman Mr Arkady Dvorkovich to FIDE on 21 April, nominating Kirsan Ilyumzhinov as Russia’s candidate for the office of FIDE President 2010-2014. Furthermore, the RCF informed FIDE that the letter sent by Mr. Alexander Bakh on 23 June is not valid on nominating a candidacy from the Russian Chess Federation. Attached are all the relevant documents as sent by the RCF.

A. Presidential Tickets for FIDE elections:

I. Presidential ticket of Mr. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov:

1. President – Mr. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov nominated by Russia, Argentina and Mexico,
2. Deputy President – Mr. Georgios Makropoulos nominated by Greece,
3. Vice President – Mr. Lewis Ncube nominated by Zambia,
4. Vice President – Mrs. Beatriz Marinello nominated by Chile and Brazil,
5. General Secretary – Mr. Ignatius Leong nominated by Singapore,
6. Treasurer – Mr. Nigel Freeman nominated by Bermuda.

II. Presidential ticket of Mr. Anatoly Karpov:

1. President – Mr. Anatoly Karpov nominated by France, Germany and Switzerland,
2. Deputy President – Mr. Richard Conn Jr nominated by USA,
3. Vice President – Dr. Aguinaldo Jaime nominated by Angola,
4. Vice President – Prof. Dr. Alica Maric nominated by Serbia,
5. General Secretary – Mr. Abd Hamid Majid nominated by Malaysia,
6. Treasurer – Mr. Viktor Kapustin nominated by Ukraine.

B. Continental Presidents elections:

I. Continental President for Europe:

1. Mr. Silvio Danailov nominated by Bulgaria,
2. Dr. Robert von Weinzacker nominated by Germany,
3. Mr. Ali-Nihat Yazici nominated by Turkey.

II. Continental President for the Americas:

1. Mr. Jorge Vega Fernandez nominated by Guatemala,
2. Mr. Erick Marvin Guevara nominated by El Salvador.

III. Continental President for Asia:

1. Sultan Bin Khalifa Al-Nahayan nominated by United Arab Emirates.

IV. Continental President for Africa:

1. Mr. Dabilani Buthali nominated by Botswana,
2. Dr. Hesham Elgendy nominated by Sudan,
3. Dr. Mohammad Moammar AL-Gathafi nominated by Libya,
4. Mr. Lakhdar Mazouz nominated by Algeria,
5. Mr. Kezzie Msukwa nominated by Malawi,
6. Mr. Hussein Nafady nominated by Egypt,
7. Mr. Max Baron Nitzborn nominated by Namibia.

FIDE is examining the validity of all candidacies submitted within the deadline of 28 June and will ratify the list of candidates during its Presidential Board meeting in Tromso, 24-25 July.

Released by the FIDE Secretariat, 29 June 2010

Please view the statement letters of the Russian Chess Federation to support the candidacy of Kirsan Ilyumzhinov for the office of FIDE President 2010-2014.

• Letter of the Russian Chess Federaion April, 21 2010 (Russian) | English
• Letter of the Russian Chess Fedration June, 28 2010 (Russian) | English
• Minutes of the meeting of the Supervisory Board of the of the Russian Chess Federation June, 28 2010 (Russian) | English
• Letter of the FIDE Executive Director to the Russian Chess Federation June, 29 2010 (English)
• Letter of the Russian Chess Federation to FIDE June, 29 2010 (Russian) | English

In recent news, the New York Times recently reported:

“On his campaign site, Ilyumzhinov recently announced that 50 national federations have pledged to vote for him. Karpov’s campaign site does not announce the number of federations, but it has a rolling roster of 23 flags. One curiosity is that both sites list Russia and Honduras as supporters, and they cannot both be right as each country gets one vote. (The fight for the endorsement of Russia has been particularly contentious.)” – The P.R. Blitz for the Presidency (New York Times)

Well, right they are! We count with the support of more National Federations (we have published 55 so far and more are on the way)!

However, let there be NO MISTAKE, no bits of ‘curiosity’ here…

THE CHOICE IS CLEAR FOR RUSSIA…RUSSIA’S ONLY CHOICE IS KIRSAN ILYUMZHINOV!

Stay tuned for more from our campaign!

Please see the letter of support below:

(English Translation)

June, 28 2010 Moscow

Dear Sirs,

In accordance with the decision of the Supervisory board of the Russian Chess federation (RCF), the meeting was held on June 28th, 2010, the present confirms the letter send by me on April 21st, 2010 about nomination of the candidate from RCF on the elections for office of the FIDE President during FIDE Congress in Khanty-Mansiysk (2010).

Best regards.

Chairman of the Supervisory board

A. Dvorkovich

Q: What are the elections in the International Chess Federation?

JV: Every four years, coinciding with the World Chess Olympiad there are ratified or rectified the Nominees or Candidates for the Presidential Board and consequently, the
Continental Offices of the four geographic areas which make up FIDE.

Q: What are the offices that are up for election?

JV: The FIDE Presidential Board puts into play the Presidency, Deputy President, two Vice Presidents, one of which must correspond to a woman, the General Secretary and the Treasurer and on the Continents the Presidency, Deputy Presidency, General Secretary, Treasurer and three members.

Q: Who will face in the presidency of FIDE?

JV: So far there are two candidates, the current President, Mr. Kirzan Ilyumzhinov and the aspiring GM Anatoly Karpov.

Q: How do you see the possibilities of each one?

JV: Although there are left three months to the election it is shaping up as a decisive victory for Mr. Ilyumzhinov, at the time being 50 Federations openly support Mr. Ilyumzhinov and only 22 Mr. Karpov.

Q: Where do you base your statement?

JV: The experience gained in the conduct of the Western European Federations has always been anti-Ilyumzhinov therefore it is expected that Karpov will win in Europe at a rate of 4-3, but in Asia, Africa and America, there ,the domain of Ilyumzhinov will be 3-1, enough to win a total of about 100 votes of 170 national federations members of FIDE.

Q: Do candidates form teams for the election campaign?

JV: Of course, Mr. Ilyumzhinov’s is composed by members of his ticket, Turkey and the four Continental Presidents and GM Karpov’s is composed by Mr. Richard Conn, GM Garry Kasparov and the Presidents of the Federations of Nicaragua and El Salvador, as far as I know.

Q: But the alliance Karpov-Kasparov seems formidable.

JV: No, you have to differentiate the history of both as players, which is undeniable, from their political activity, that has large gaps. The campaign in itself is difficult for them, because they have to fight what was been done by Ilyumzhinov, while they only make campaign promises hard to fulfill.

Q: How do you see the specific situation in America?

JV: Very difficult for Karpov, although his team has concentrated on promoting his candidacy in the area, its convening power to date has been virtually invalid, they organized recently a meeting in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where they invited Presidents of the Federations of the Caribbean but no one attended.They also called a meeting in Lima where it was supposed to be attended by the Presidents of South America, result nobody came and moreover after the meeting, the Peru Federation came out openly in Ilyumzhinov´s favour; according to this fact, we are seeing a sign of how things will turn out.

At present, 15 National Federations have expressed open support for Ilyumzhinov while only four have done it for Karpov. The first has virtually done little campaigning in America while Karpov has done his best here without results. This is also an indication of what will happen.

Q: Central America was an Ilyumzhinov stronghold and now it is divided.

JV: It does not influence and also enters on the campaign’s predictions. Since his election, it was well known that the President of El Salvador was very hostile to Ilyumzhinov and on Nicaragua there were serious doubts, the only surprise was Honduras who switched sides after expressing his support to Ilyumzhinov in written form, but this is compensated by the support of Federations that in 2006 backed up the candidacy of Bessel Kok.

Q: When did you decide to seek reelection to the Presidency of America?

JV: What convinced me, was the statement of modifying the system of votes in FIDE, announced by Ilyumzhinov’s opponents, by giving preference to strong federations and discrimination marked towards small Federations.After checking the negative effect of this statement, Karpov’s group tried to amend it but the letters remain. Another decisive factor is the personal investment made by Ilyumzhinov in favor of chess, while the others have not done anything concrete, just mere promises.

Q: Do you think the recent announcement of Mr. Ilyumzhinov to establish over a five year cycle, an event designed to promote talent in the CACDEC American Federations, and a Latin-American Cup with an annual contribution of USD 100,000 financed personally by him will influence the outcome of the vote?

JV: You have to analyze it from two points, the first, since the technical side is an initiative which undoubtedly will promote chess in the continent and especially in Central America and the Caribbean, it will also create an opportunity in Latin America to have a stable event of high-level chess players. The second point, the political aspect, is a hard blow to the campaign promises of opponents, who have never offered anything like this. We should just simply compare the “I do” with the “I’m going to do.”  The initiatives of the Campomanes Memorial in Asia and the events in Latin America, speaking in boxing terms, would imply “knockout” for Ilyumzhinov opponents.

Q: Turning to the election in America you have won twice the presidency by acclamation, do you expect an opponent this time?

JV: It’s boring wining by default, not worth for rating as well, so I hope and desire there would be an opponent, but so far there is nothing concrete, just rumors.

Q: But it is mentioned that Mr. Marvin Guevara from El Salvador will face you with the support of Karpov.

JV: We shall see, but I do not think so, I imagine that Karpov´s team will try to find a leading candidate, not with the idea of victory, but to distract my time in America and so to prevent me to go to Africa to support Ilyumzhinov, Guevara would leave me free hands with his inexperience, his negligible international activity and the cancellation of the Absolute Continental event that he tried to organize in 2009 which badly affected all Central America, thus affecting his sport reputation and credibility.

Q: Do you feel worried?

JV: Not at all, I am announcing the ticket of the people who join me in my candidacy; I can say that I consider it very balanced and generally very hard to beat.

The ticket is:

• IA Jorge Vega- Guatemala-Continental President
• GM Darcy Lima-Brazil- Deputy President
• Arch. Russell Smith-Trinidad & Tobago- General Secretary.
• Eng. Allan Herbert-Barbados- Treasurer
• GM Silvino Garcia-Cuba- Member
• Eng. Alfonso Naranjo-Colombia- Member
• Arch. Eduardo Mieles-Ecuador- Member

For FIDE Executive Board we propose:  Pfr. Uvencio Blanco, Venezuela; GM Silvino Garcia, Cuba; Mrs. Margaret Murphy, USVI and Dr. Milton Iturry, Peru.

Our campaign web site is: http://www.oneamerica-onefide.com

Q: Can I wish you luck in the election?

JV: Thank you, I am totally convinced of the results in Siberia.

The first “Latin American Cup” will be organized in Peru in August.  This new FIDE event will have a prize fund of a US $50,000!

The “One World. One Vision.” Team is honored to have the support of  Dr. Milton Iturry, President of the Peruvian Chess Federation.

Chess in Peru is extremely popular, and has also had an increasing number of young talented players.

Hosting the “Latin American Cup” in Peru will be a real boost for Perurvian chess players and other talented players from the region.