Voting for least-worst

I’ve vehemently tried to avoid commenting on the federal election, primarily because it’s just so uninspiring.  A tepid, usually negative campaign has disappointed all but the most desperate political junkies, and the only sign of passion was when Mark Latham decided to have a go at everything and everyone in sight.

I happened to be seated behind the former Labor leader on a Friday night flight to Brisbane two weeks ago.  Had I known he was about to assault Julia Gillard the following morning at the Brisbane Ekka show, I would have kicked the back of his seat a little harder. 

But I digress. While I’ve become more and more disinterested in this election campaign, I’m far more concerned about (and, sadistically, entertained by) the upcoming FIDE elections.  The incumbent president of the world chess federation, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, has quite a bizarre resume.  Besides all the usual corruption and bribery rumours that seem to perennially circulate the FIDE presidency, Kirsan doubles as the President of a Russian state called Kalmykia, claims to have been abducted by aliens, and is reportedly linked to the violent murder of an opposition newspaper journalist, Larisa Yudina, in 1998.

Meanwhile, his chief electoral opponent is former world chess champion Anatoly Karpov, who, quite surprisingly, is primarily supported by his most famous adversary, Gary Kasparov.

What makes this election race so fascinating is that Russia can only officially endorse one presidential candidate under the FIDE election rules, meaning that, technically, one of Kirsan’s and Karpov’s campaigns could be invalid.  The vote to elect the Russian candidate was itself marred by controversy, with the Kremlin injecting itself into the debate.  Things really fired up on 21 May this year, as the online newspaper True/Slant reports:

“Today, at around 2:15 Moscow time, black suited men from the private security firm “Peper” arrived at the [Russian chess] Federation’s offices, and presented Federation president Aleksandr Bakh with a diktat signed by [the president’s deputy, Arkady] Dvorkovich saying that Peper was now in charge. They then kicked out the regular security guards and sealed off some rooms in the building as a helpless Bakh called the police.”

Now, wouldn’t THAT make our federal election more exciting!  Anyone got Latham’s number?