A New FIDE President?
Monday, April 10, 2017 at 12:01PM
Dennis Monokroussos in FIDE, Georgios Makropolous, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, chess politics

Sort of. According to this statement, it appears that FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov has not resigned, but has given up all his powers as President. He has withdrawn "from any legal, financial and business operations of FIDE...to enable him to concentrate on clearing the situation with the US Department of the Treasury."

So who is in charge now? Deputy President Georgios Makropolous:

Until further notice, under section A.9.5 of the FIDE Statutes, if the President: “duly authorises, then he can be represented by the Deputy President who shall exercise the powers of the President. The Deputy President can thus represent FIDE officially and can solely sign for FIDE.” Therefore Mr. Makropoulos will now be exercising these powers and representing FIDE officially.

Is this a good thing for chess? He will probably be less controversial than Ilyumzhinov - which is setting the bar rather low. But as he has been a good soldier for Ilyumzhinov in the past, there is no positive reason to think that his quasi-ascension will mark a real change, either. Moreover, it may be that he may just be keeping Ilyumzhinov's seat warm until the latter can resume the full exercise of his powers.

(HT: Allen Becker)

Article originally appeared on The Chess Mind (http://www.thechessmind.net/).
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