Which Candidate Should the ECF Support in the FIDE Presidential Election?

[Chris Rice]

I will of course accept your judgement as always Carl but please bear in mind that Justin's definition of smear campaign is very narrow and is not a legal definition by any stretch.

ie:

"Nigel Short is an offensive, untrustworthy, self-centred and misogynistic bully whose standard mode of behaviour is the feud. I wouldn't put him in charge of a weekend tournament."

"Ageing sexist guy who's been a parody of himself for years"

However, I have removed the S&B blog entry "Settling Old Accounts" as after reviewing I haven't got any justifiable objections to it after all.

http://lostontime.blogspot.co.uk/2018/0 ... nigel.html
http://lostontime.blogspot.co.uk/2018/0 ... dy-of.html

[JustinHorton]

I will of course accept your judgement as always Carl but please bear in mind that Justin's definition of smear campaign is very narrow and is not a legal definition by any stretch.

It's the dictionary definition.

We now have "unverifiable rumors and distortions and half-truths" on top of the previous claims. Anyone for projection?

[Roger Lancaster]

I don't have any great insight into the accuracy or otherwise of Justin's observations on Nigel Short (and I'm agnostic where Nigel is concerned) but, in a sense, they constitute a double-edged sword. Justin appears to argue that being Mr Nasty disqualifies someone from reforming FIDE. It's equally arguable that Mr Nasty would have a better chance than some thoroughly nice chap with the best of intentions but insufficient ruthlessness.

[JustinHorton]

I don't know that it's a disqualification, but I do think that we have a real person with a real track record which I don't see any compelling reason to overlook, though it does constitute some compelling reasons why his advocates might wish us to.

[Chris Rice]

I will of course accept your judgement as always Carl but please bear in mind that Justin's definition of smear campaign is very narrow and is not a legal definition by any stretch.

It's the dictionary definition.

We now have "unverifiable rumors and distortions and half-truths" on top of the previous claims. Anyone for projection?

I did link to the information earlier as the definition you gave included "false allegations" which wasn't further defined and case law on this is quite extensive.

However, that last remark "anyone for projection?" I found really offensive. I thought we were debating the subject in a reasonable manner until then.

[JustinHorton]

As I've had to report more than one post to moderators on account of defamation, I think "reasonable manner" is pretty far from a proper description of your debating style, Chris.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"As I've had to report more than one post to moderators on account of defamation"

That's not true. You chose to report the posts! Give Carl a break.

[Jonathan Rogers]

I value the posts of both Chris and Justin and hope that this can be resolved amicably.

On the question whether Nigel is running with Kasparov's encouragement - well, who can seriously doubt it?

Not, incidentally, that I imagine that Nigel would have been Kasparov's first choice. Reflecting on the PCA experience, he would say years later than he had overestimated the support Nigel had from other western grandmasters. As for previous experience of Nigel as President of anything, I am surprised that no one has mentioned that he was President of the Grandmaster's Association in the early 1990s and that its collapse was precipitated by his resignation after just three months in order to set up the PCA (according to Nunn in his second best games collection). So, leading experience in two short lived and defunct organisations seem to be prominent on the CV in terms of political/managerial experience.

Mind you, negative points aside, who on earth should we vote for, indeed? Does Justin have an answer to that?

[JustinHorton]

I voted for None of The Above, if that's any help. I can expand on that answer if you want.

[Brian Towers]

according to Nunn in his second best games collection

And everybody goes on about how ground-breaking Fischer was for publishing losses in his "My 60 Memorable Games"

[Jonathan Rogers]

Well, I thought you might have done that, Justin. As an expression of our view of their suitability, that is fine.

But do you go further and suggest that all delegates should abstain, as well?

[JustinHorton]

Imagine if they held a vote and nobody came?

[Roger de Coverly]

But do you go further and suggest that all delegates should abstain, as well?

Unlike ECF elections, "None of the above" is not going to be on the ballot paper.

The ECF Board are going to have to announce how they are going to instruct the FIDE Delegate to vote. Whatever announcement they make is going to attract a massive hissy fit from some quarter. A possible outcome is that either the FIDE Delegate or the President will stand down.

[JustinHorton]

What I really think is that the chess community should up its game, which is to say our game, and that we should have a much better knowledge of who does what and why in FIDE than we do, and a much better knowledge of the leading players in that organisation than we do. This might partly depend on having better chess journalism (though in my view that situation is improving) but it mostly depends on ourselves. But within the particular context of the English chess community it would necessarily entail abandoning the habits I described a few pages ago, of shrieking about a caricature version of FIDE while ignoring everything that's wrong with our own house and our own favoured candidates.

[JustinHorton]

I should add that it's entirely proper in any given election to say that no candidate reaches what we consider a minimum level of suitability (wherever we may choose to set that bar) and more than that, it's important that somebody at least should take that view.