Bengaluru: Five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand was re-elected international chess federation (Fide) deputy president for the second time in a row at the Fide general assembly in Samarkand on Saturday. Billionaire businessman and Kazakhstan chess federation chief Timur Turlov won the Fide presidential elections, with Anand running as deputy, after two rounds of voting.
The Fide general assembly took place on the sidelines of the Chess Olympiad which entered its penultimate round on Saturday.
The Fide president and deputy are elected on a joint ticket. It was a battle between three presidential candidates – Turlov-Anand, Wadim Rosenstein-Gordon Tang, Jan Buettner-Malcolm Pein. the three tickets were:
In the first round, Turlov received 96 votes, Rosenstein 76 and Buettner 20, from 192 votes cast. In the second round, Turlov defeated Rosenstein 110–85. Delegates from 196 national federations participated.
Anand, Fide deputy president since 2022, had been serving as interim Fide president since July, when Arkady Dvorkovich was placed under EU sanctions related to Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Initially, Anand was not in the fray. Dvorkovich was seeking a third term in office, with Turlov as his running mate for deputy president. Soon after the sanctions were imposed, however, Turlov announced his candidacy for presidency, replacing Dvorkovich. Anand, who was elected deputy president in 2022 was then back in the race.