Former world chess champion Garry Kasparov rarely tasted defeat in his playing career. But in an election for the presidency of the World Chess Federation, the game’s governing body, Kasparov received a stinging rebuke this week in his effort to unseat the incumbent, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov.
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Mr Ilyumzhinov won handily, by a vote of 110-61 in Tromso, Norway.
Mr Ilyumzhinov, 52, a native of Kalmykia, a poor Russian republic on the Caspian Sea, has led the chess federation since 1995, but not without controversy. He cultivated friendships with Saddam Hussein, Muammar Gaddafi and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and claims he was abducted by space aliens one night in 1997. He also claims the game was invented by extraterrestrials.
Kasparov, 51, who lived in and played for Russia for many years, retired from competition in 2005. He has complained for years that Ilyumzhinov’s stewardship of the federation has discouraged corporate sponsorship and brought the group disrepute.
After the election, Ilyumzhinov issued a statement through a spokesman.
‘‘We have big differences with my opponent: I believe that chess should be clear of politics while he thinks that they are a political tool,’’ the statement said.
But politics has been part and parcel of international chess for many years..
The late American whiz Bobby Fischer conducted an epic battle with Boris Spassky of Russia in the early 1970s that became media shorthand for the Cold War.
This year, in a preemptive move in the months before the election, Russian embassies in many countries called chess officials in an effort to help the candidacy of Ilyumzhinov. Among those who said they had been contacted were officials in the Czech Republic, Ireland, Jamaica, Kenya, Myanmar, Nigeria, Norway and Singapore.
The election was held during the Chess Olympiad, a biennial competition that ended on Thursday, and each of the participating countries had one vote.
The candidates crisscrossed the globe in a long, bitter campaign for support. Each side charged the other with trying to secure votes through dirty dealing and bribery, charges that were elevated after secret contracts signed by the candidates were put online this year.
One contract was between Kasparov and Ignatius Leong, a Singaporean chess official who was the general secretary of the federation and Mr Ilyumzhinov’s lieutenant. In the contract, Kasparov, through his foundation, agreed to pay a scholastic chess foundation run by Mr Leong up to $1 million in return for his securing votes for Kasparov’s election.
The other contract was between Mr Ilyumzhinov and Andrew Paulson, founder of an organisation called Agon that was given the exclusive right to organise all top chess events. In the contract, Mr Ilyumzhinov would have owned 51 per cent of Agon and Mr Paulson the rest. Both men said the contract was real but never went into effect.
Kasparov’s campaign also accused Mr Ilyumzhinov, through his control of the federation, of replacing chess officials in some countries who were loyal to Kasparov with officials who supported Mr Ilyumzhinov. Among the countries where Kasparov said this had happened were Afghanistan and Gabon.
In the end, all of the jockeying did not make a big difference, as the vote was no closer than it was in 2010, when Mr Ilyumzhinov beat back a challenge by Anatoly Karpov, Kasparov’s longtime nemesis and his predecessor as world champion. In that election, Kasparov supported Karpov, but Mr Ilyumzhinov won 95-55.
New York Times
