Dvorkovich Wins FIDE Presidency

It was indeed a landslide win for FIDE's Arkady Dvorkovich who sought reelection into the coveted position of FIDE President as been re-elected President during the organisation's General Assembly in Chennai.

Despite bashing from other candidates specifically as it relates to the war, Mr.. Arkady pooled in 157 votes to quench the quest of Ukrainian Andrii Baryshpolets, who only got 16 votes.

Bachar Kouatly and Ian Wilkinson withdrew just before votes were cast.

The win for Mr. Arkady is a win for India's Viswanathan Anand who is now the elected Deputy President of FIDE.

Dvorkovich who has led FIDE since 2018 sought reelection in spite of calls and petitions for him to resign due to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. This is at the heels of ban on chess players from Russia and Belarus and sanctions against Russian player Sergey Karjakin who openly supported the war.

Though Dvorkovich is a former Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, and a former Assistant to the PM, he made it clear that he is NOT in support of the war. He is quoted as saying:

"Wars are the worst things one might face in life… including this war. My thoughts are with Ukrainian civilians. Wars do not just kill priceless lives, wars kill hopes and aspirations, freeze or destroy relationships and connections."

His opponent, Baryshpolets who went as far as starting a petition with change.org before he put himself forward for election,  only managed to get 16 votes against Arkady's 157 votes.

This did not come as a surprise. As an unbiased commission member who is in congress for the first time as a substitute scutineer I maintained that his campaigned showed inexperience and was flawed. Listening to his presentation twice, though he cuts the image of someone who could be a president in future, he failed in the area of highlighting his plans for FIDE beyond what Arkady has achieved.

Now that Arkady has a landslkdw win to walkthrough the next four years as President of the governing council of FIDE, will his opponents continue to seek avenues to unseat him or work with him to use his position to heal the world and unify people using a sport that is fast gaining more popularity globally- CHESS.

Time will tell.

Reporting from the FIDE General Assembly in Chennai, I am Omolola