The candidates for the 2022 FIDE Presidential Election have been announced and the elections set! It is a complicated process (as politics so often is!) but FIDE announced that:
· Mr. Andrii Baryshpolets and Mr. Peter-Heine Nielsen,
· Mr. Inalbek Cheripov and Mr. Lewis Ncube,
· Mr. Arkady Dvorkovich and Mr. Anand Viswanathan,
· Mr. Bachar Kouatly and Mr. Ian Wilkinson.
would be contesting the election at the FIDE General Assembly in Chennai, India on 7 August 2022.
The General Assembly was originally supposed to be held in Moscow along with the 2022 Chess Olympiad but was moved away from Russia following a decision by FIDE.
In fact, on 25 February, 2022 FIDE held an extraordinary meeting where it was decided to move ALL official competitions away from Russia.
On 16 March 2022, Russia and Belarus were suspended from participating in FIDE events. Individual players would still be allowed to participate in tournaments of the FIDE World Championship cycle, but not under their own country flags, instead participating under the FIDE flag. FIDE also banned Sergey Karjakin from all events for 6 months for his comments on the war and support of the invasion.
It made sense, considering the Russian invasion of Ukraine (although shamefully FIDE referred to it as “the rapidly deteriorating geopolitical situation”!) and the resulting response from the world: sanctions, financial restrictions, travel bans, international companies leaving Russia, seizing assets of Oligarchs, etc.
What doesn’t make sense, considering FIDE and the world’s response to Russia’s invasion, is that a Russian should be allowed to contest the Presidential Election! At a time when drastic measures are being taken to limit Russian influence and soft-power around the world.
This would be true of any Russian candidate for the position of FIDE President. However, Mr. Dvorkovich is no ordinary candidate.
He is also a politically connected elite with strong ties to the current regime. He was named on the U.S. Treasury’s “Putin List” in 2018. This was a list of senior Russian politicians and oligarchs who rose to prominence under Vladmir Putin. Everyone on this list were specifically considered for sanctions at that time because the Russian annexation of Crimea, Human Rights record, and ongoing military operations in Ukraine.
He is a career Russian politician, highlights of which include:
· 1994 Ministry of Finance (Russia)
· 2000 Center for Strategic Research (Russia)
· August 2000 Adviser to the Minister for Economic Development (Russia)
· 2001 Deputy Minister for Economic Development (Russia)
· April 2004 Head of Expert Group of President of the Russian Federation
· May 2008 Assistant to the President of the Russian Federation
· 2012 –2018 Deputy Prime Minister of Russia
· 2018 Chairman of the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia Local Organizing Committee
· October 2018 FIDE President
That’s right! He was Deputy Prime Minister of Russia for nearly 6 years!
And this is FIDE’s Russian problem: they are making a show of doing the right thing and taking steps against Russian players and events. However, the current President and favorite candidate to win the next Presidential Election is not only Russian but a high ranking politician connected to the current problematic regime.
By his own admission, Mr. Dvorkovich has faced pressure to advance Russian interests while serving as President of FIDE and that he was close to the current Kremlin regime as recently as 2018. Close enough “to call” should he need to — as he apparently did for the Chess Olympiad scheduled to be in Moscow.
Positions of power and influence should not be open to Russian influence at all and definitely not to someone who is, at best, pressurized to advance Russian interests and, at worst, connected to the Putin Regime.
