Kasparov vs Ilyumzhinov: the FIDE Presidency battle begins

[Paolo Casaschi]

Well yes, except that this assumes that the players themselves in any given country would line up solidly behind one candidate or another.

Or that the FIDE delegate even cares about what the members think. Since ECF members have practically no influence into the election of the ECF board, how could you pretend they would have representation in the FIDE elections?

[Mike Truran]

More here: http://en.chessbase.com/post/contractga ... -agreement

[JustinHorton]

It takes some front to claim "transparency" when publishing a secret agreement only because the draft of that agreement has been published in the New York Times.

[John McKenna]

What better way to achieve full-spectrum transparency? And, naturally,the other side must be blamed for the leak - using the dubious methods of the opponent may be the only way to win this battle. Again, naturally, Englishmen will be outraged at such a suggestion.
Off to hear Garry bang the gong at Wijk now.

[Roger de Coverly]

The ECF President has involved himself in this according to the chessvibes site.

http://www.chessvibes.com/leaked-contra ... -vs-ethics

[Angus French]

More here: http://en.chessbase.com/post/contractga ... -agreement

In the interests of transparency, can we know how the Kasparov campaign is being funded - i.e. who is providing finance to Kasparov Chess Foundation and to what value?

How exactly does the Kasparov team expect Leong to be able to secure a minimum of "10 + 1" votes?

It’s not clear to me how the two contracts relate to each. One is a contract between Kasparov and Leong. The other is a contract between Kasparov Chess Foundation and Kasparov Chess Foundation Asia. The first appears to provide for four payments of $250,000 to Leong’s Asean Chess Academy Pte Ltd (ACA) (to be made in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016, with the first two in advance of the FIDE elections in August 2014). The second has no reference to Leong’s ACA organisation and concerns payment of $500,000.

[John Saunders]

1st rule of FIDE #chess politics: he who would sup with the Devil needs to use a Leong spoon.

[NickFaulks]

John, you should contribute more often.

[JustinHorton]

The ECF President has involved himself in this according to the chessvibes site.

http://www.chessvibes.com/leaked-contra ... -vs-ethics

Has he though, or was that Andrew Paulson of AGON commenting?

[Roger de Coverly]

Has he though, or was that Andrew Paulson of AGON commenting?

You would hope that he was speaking and acting as an individual and not on behalf of the ECF. I took the mention of the ECF to just be an identifier for those not familiar with his name.

[JustinHorton]

Has he though, or was that Andrew Paulson of AGON commenting?

You would hope that he was speaking and acting as an individual and not on behalf of the ECF. I took the mention of the ECF to just be an identifier for those not familiar with his name.

I'd kind of like to know rather than hope.

[NickFaulks]

For many years, one of the consistent complaints from Kirsan's detractors has been that they have suspected him of securing votes in Asia using the mechanism of stuffing large sums of money into Leong's back pocket. No legal documents have ever surfaced, but even if it were true I wouldn't expect there to be any, since that's not the Asian way of doing things.

Now, Leong has changed sides, and a document has been leaked, and then made public, which contains the words

"IL will receive a total amount of $ 500 000 to be paid in agreed tranches between
the signing of this Agreement and 1 month before the opening of the FIDE General
Assembly in August 2014"

Those same detractors would now have us believe that not a penny of this money could possibly reach Leong's back pocket, because of a reference to another clause. Please forgive me a bemused shake of the head.

[David Robertson]

Dave may have been too influenced by the word 'plague' and overlooked the small but significant difference between a preceding definite or indefinite article. "A plague on both your houses" could be meant in a Old Testament sense, i.e. one of frogs, lice, flies, murrain, boils, hail or locusts - the seven biblical plagues visited on the Egyptians. When he offers Mike a choice of bubonic/pneumonic/septacaemic plague he is offering a variety of what is now know as the plague and not one of the different kinds intended in the Shakespearian quote?)

I'm afraid this is unadulterated nonsense. "A plague (on) both your houses" is indeed from 'Romeo and Juliet'. But the belief that Shakespeare had in mind a biblical plague of frogs etc is quite implausible. Shakespeare had in mind, and was referring to, the virulent pandemic of the Plague (aka Black Death), outbreaks of which were commonplace in England throughout the Elizabethan period. Consider the evidence:

* Shakespeare narrowly avoided dying of the plague. In the year of his conception (b. 1564), over 20,000 people in England died from an outbreak;
* Shakespeare lost three sisters, and his 11 year old son Hamnet (sic), to the plague. He would lose grandchildren too;
* the Globe theatre was closed by the plague three times before 1600. And between 1603 and 1609, the Globe and other playhouses were closed sixty times by the same threat. Indeed some commentators argue Shakespeare's retirement was hastened by the absence of actors and stage opportunities.

Until the modern period with the advent of organised public health measures and then antibiotics, and certainly in the late medieval/early modern period, the plague was ever-present in peoples' lives, and a major cause of death. Shakespeare didn't need silly-ar$e biblical plagues to inspire him; the plague was part of his life.

Finally, to bring us back on-topic: in 'King Lear' (IV, i), Gloucester says: "Tis the times' plague, when madmen lead the blind". What did Shakespeare have in mind here?

It's pretty clear, isn't it? He had FIDE in mind.

Or here.

[John McKenna]

Quite a broadside, but I'll not strike my colours just yet -

The Exodus plagues are divine judgments, a series of curses like those in Deuteronomy 28:15–68, which mention many of the same afflictions; they are even closer to the curses in the Holiness code, Leviticus 26, since like the Holiness Code they leave room for repentance. The theme that divine punishment should lead to repentance comes from the prophets (Amos 4:6–12, Ezekiel 20), and the form of prophetic speech, "Thus says Yahweh", and the figure of the prophet as divine messenger, are from the late prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel and the Deuteronomistic history (all compositions of the 6th century). The theme of Pharaoh's obstinacy is likewise derived from the 6th century prophets – Isaiah 6:9–13, Jeremiah 5:3, and Ezekiel 3:7–9 [Wikipedia]

Shakespeare was probably a god-fearing man of his time and I wonder if he would really have wished the Black Death type of plague even on his characters. That leaves little room for the repentance & redemption so crucial to the religion they followed. Of course, a truly monstrous character might wish for such a curse to be fulfilled but the character in question - Mercutio, I believe - was not such a one.

[Chris Rice]

There seems to have been an allegation that the draft contract was stolen by FIDE and that's how it got into the newspapers and caused much gnashing of teeth by Kasparov, the legal person who drafted the contract Morten Sand and Kasparov's official bag carrier, Mig Greengard on Twitter.

However, by Morten Sand's own account he sent this draft contract to Mr Leong at his fide.com email address ie Leong’s work email address which seems an unbelievably stupid thing to do, given the contents. It’s legally clear that if you send or receive something using your work email then technically it’s the property of your employer. So it’s incorrect to say the contract was “stolen” and one always has to be careful in a workplace about what emails are sent or received as they are always likely to be monitored by IT administrators for spam and such like.

Whether the upper echelons of FIDE actually got to see this email is unknown. It could easily have been copied by an IT administrator and sent to the New York Times to make a few dollars. The mysterious Bill Warth may be connected to one of the IT administrators or more likely he does not exist at all. TWIC’s Mark Crowther certainly seems to think so anyway.

What is crystal clear is that the contents of the email were a clear breach of trust and confidence by Mr Leong in his current position and would have provided ample grounds for his immediate termination from FIDE.

Could this conflict of interest have been foreseen by FIDE? Well it was, at 16.5 of the minutes of the Executive Board minutes of the FIDE Congress held in Tallinn, Estonia on 7-8 October 2013 there was a very interesting discussion on the matter which should have led to Leong stepping down at the time …

16.5. Proposal of Mr. V. Zakarian

Mr. V. Zakarian said last night many of our people attended the party given by Mr. G.Kasparov, where he presented his team, including respected people, including our General Secretary Mr. I. Leong, who made a speech there. He asked whether it is morally correct for a person elected as a member of K. Ilyumzhinov’s team, to be now in another team. He said maybe it would be morally correct for Mr. Leong to step down from his position of the General Secretary Mr. G. Makropoulos said this is not a matter for any decision to be taken here. This is a comment from our Honorary Vice-President.

Mr. K. Jungwirth said the situation is quite new, but however person is a part of an opposite ticket and it is clear, with due respect to Mr. I. Leong, that, morally, as Mr. V. Zakarian said, he has to step down, but this is what Mr. I. Leong has to decide himself.

Mr. I. Gelfer said there is no provision in FIDE Statutes, as Mr. K. Jungwirth said, this is a new case. So Mr. Leong cannot be forced to resign, it is no doubt. Ethically it should be left to him and he should immediately resign, otherwise it is a very strange situation, which cannot occur in any political body.

Mr. G. Makropoulos said nobody can force Mr. Leong to do anything, even if Mr. Leong decides to step down from his position as General Secretary, it would not be for reasons which people are mentioning here. Also I think there is no any moral problem for the Board if he stays as a member of the Board, this is different.

Ms. B. Marinello agreed with Mr. G. Makropoulos and said this is a democratic system, and General Secretary was elected and it is up to him to decide what he will do. I do not think there is a conflict.

Mr. C. Abundo said he had been to 30 Congresses, and I think this is very disruptive to start campaign so early, and FIDE had a deadline of three months, and even in many organizations there is a deadline. To declare a campaign one year ahead, is very disruptive for our work. He said that at the next meeting of the Constitutional Commission we will make a proposal for the Statutes, that a campaign should not be made so early.

Mr. B. Kutin said that if Mr. I. Leong can live with this, it is ok with him. In all other points he agreed with Messrs. Zakarian, Jungwirth and Gelfer. He disagreed with Mr. G. Makropoulos that even if Mr. Leong steps down from being General Secretary, everything is in our hands, nobody will stop him, if he wants to do this. This should be his personal decision, nobody has a right.

Mr. S. Danailov said I do not see any point of this discussion and disagreed with the opinions. He said Mr. I. Leong is doing an excellent job as General Secretary and everybody is happy with his work and he is elected by the General Assembly. And this discussion is out of order. Nobody can push him to resign. He said I do not think this is ethical.

Mr. L. Mazouz said nobody can push him out, but we’d like to hear Mr. I. Leong, if he has to comment.

Mr. K. Ilyumzhinov said this is Mr. I. Leong’s decision but since 1995 my position is that I can work with anybody, with any Champions.