2026 FIDE (World Chess Federation) Elections

TURLOV/ANAND ELECTED ON SECOND BALLOT 110-85 OVER ROSENSTEIN/TANG

INITIAL RESULTS WERE 96-76 WITH 20 FOR BUETTNER/PEIN

BUETTNER/PEIN ENDORSED TURLOV/ANAND FOLLOWING A POLICY DEAL

Updates (scrolling to the top) - times are local time GMT+5

9:00 Yassin Souleiman Hassan (Djibouti) 67 votes wins the last spot easily, none of the others has a significant score.

8:05 Malcolm Pein has withdrawn in protest at the election of Kolobkov who he believes should not have been eligible to stand.  

The silliness of single round FPP at this point is that it's necessary in casting of an effective vote to think about who is likely to be most competitive, but we have seen that first round competitiveness in this format does not always translate that well to the second round. 

I am quoting here a core part of the ruling from the Electoral Commission re Kolobkov:

The Electoral Commission observes that the suspension of the Russian Chess Federation does not imply a sanction against all Russian citizens. Mr. Kolobkov does not represent the Russian Federation, and he has never incurred any sanction of ineligibility, ban or exclusion from office, in relation to any violation of the FIDE Ethics and Disciplinary Code. In addition, it has to be reminded that, in accordance with art. 16.9 of the FIDE Charter, “persons elected or nominated as members of FIDE organs shall sit on those organs in their individual capacity and must act exclusively in the best interest of FIDE, without undue influence from third parties, their Member Federation or FIDE Continent”.

7:33 Elected on the first ballot as Vice-Presidents are Yuhua Xu (China) 100 votes of 186, Michael Khordakovsky (USA, 93/186) and Pavel Kolobkov (Russia, 78).  The rest Adeyami (NGR) 33 Aulin-Jansson (NOR) 29, Glek (Bel) 7, Hassan (Djibouti) 72, Icklicki (Liechtenstein) (43), Kasmidzhanov (UZB) 32, Llada (ESP) 32, Mastrokoukos (CAN) 33, Namangale (Malawi) 58, Pein (ENG) 39, Pichay (PHI) 22.  So many of these as do not withdraw now go to a single FPP ballot (yuck!) for the remaining position.  For the first round, average of 3.6 boxes marked per voter.

6:54 Cyprus and Curacao are asleep on the desk behind me, slumped in identical poses.  I'd add a photo but that would be mean.  

6:51 As Jorge Arias Bouzada has just been appointed General Secretary, Francois Strydom is elected unopposed to the Constitutional Committee.  Some of the new President's appointments are being delayed to tomorrow.  

6:35 Votes are being counted (this takes a while for this one).  There is controversy about Pavel Kolobkov (Russia) among the opposing tickets; if he is elected there is likely to be a legal challenge.

5:40 Voting is about to start (the field is down to 14).  The VP elections are the only remaining business today.

4:46 Vice-President election is on.  The system is two rounds FPP with in theory 3 elected on the first round (where each voter can vote for up to four) and 1 on the second.  However the second round is not needed if at least four candidates of two genders break 50% on the first round.  If that doesn't happen and the 3 elected the first time are of the same gender then the second round is closed to the "other" gender.  (FIDE only accepts M and F as genders though there is a move to allow X.)  Pein has been added but three candidates have withdrawn, one of these I believe forced by a rule prohibiting two candidates from the same Federation on the council.  The others are speaking now, for two minutes maximum.  I won't be voting for ones who run way overtime.

By the way, coincidence corner - the 25-vote margin is the same in raw terms as Dvorkovich vs Makropoulos in 2018!

2:44 TURLOV WINS 110-85.  One abstention.  Malcolm Pein running for VP so there will be at least 17 VP candidates unless some withdraw (I believe India will no longer have a candidate on account of Anand being on council).  The Assembly is suspended til 4:30.  

2:43 It wasn't but result impending.

2:14 Revote finished, the count should be quick.

1:55 About halfway through the revote.  

1:18 PEIN AND TURLOV HAVE DONE A DEAL!  The deal includes terms limiting the number of FIDE employees from any one country, preventing the FIDE Legal advisor from being Russian, and some other matters I will report in detail when I have them (there will be a statement).  There is a lot going on here and a lot of hasty conversations between important people including the Electoral Commission figures.  

Players in the Olympiad are being called up to vote first.  

12:49 Oh wow! Turlov has polled exactly 50% and there is a runoff after all with first round standings Turlov/Anand 96 Rosenstein/Tang 76 Buettner/Pein 20 (eliminated).  Four votes were informal. The Buettner/Pein ticket has not endorsed anyone for the second round though many of their voters would come from European federations that could well favour Rosenstein.  However just as preferences never flow 100%, so it will in theory be very difficult for Rosenstein to reach a tie from here.  But what could be a factor is that the voters in the two rounds might not be the same (especially as some of the informal voters from the last round may learn to vote, or some of the missing voters from the first round could turn up).  So it aint over.  Ballot papers are being prepared for the second round.

12:25 We may get at least one more Vice-Presidential candidate as there is a regulation allowing defeated ticket members to run.  

12:11 Voting finished a few minutes ago, quite fast this year with four voting booths.  The outcome is not far away.  

11:31 There is some talk of a blowout here, that Turlov will not only win on the first ballot but could do so by a large margin, with over 100 votes.

11:04 I have voted.  On the way through the process one signs, then is scanned for electronic devices, then signs again, then is given a ballot.  One votes in a booth with an open curtain but such that one's body shields the view of the ballot paper (given the number of officials present it is unlikely anyone would get away with showing their vote to another delegate).  There was a little confusion with some other delegates with the call through procedure but it was resolved.

10:49 VOTING HAS COMMENCED.  (Actually after several minutes of setting up, at 11:57 Afghanistan, Albania and Algeria are making their way to the ballot box)

10:00 Candidate speeches are commencing, limited to 15 minutes per ticket, in the order Rosenstein/Tang, Buettner/Pein, Turlov/Anand.  Comments follow:

*Rosenstein spoke for less than half his 15 minutes in a calm and measured tone, largely in general terms, and received ten seconds of applause.  He appeared on the screen alone without any video or accompaniment.

*Buettner presented a brief video including an endorsement of sorts from Magnus Carlsen, and started by introducing himself as "Holly's husband".  He also spoke a line in Arabic (and a few other languages) and gave a demo including actual chess pieces to illustrate points.  His speech was passionate and animated and also received about ten seconds of applause.  And he didn't withdraw!

* Turlov appeared speaking with a slide show running in the panel on the screen, including his team graphic, images of him with supporters and at tournaments in Kazakhstan.  (By the way his team's graphic design with white and brown text colours referencing himself and Anand is quite clever).  There was nothing surprising in the speech to anyone who has seen Turlov on the campaign trail.  He received 25 seconds of applause before handing over to Anand, the only speaker to briefly use his running mate in his speech. Anand got another 25 seconds.  I'll be surprised if this makes it to a second ballot.  

9:05 Here we are at the General Assembly, a scattering of delegates and a familiar hat may be visible above, the rest are late arriving in the hall; it is FIDE after all.

Last night there was alleged skulduggery with the Rosenstein ticket having cars to ferry delegates to its party turned around before the carpark (I am unaware of the exact circumstances but can confirm it occurred).  There has also been a spicy Dvorkovich tweet which makes me think he reckons it is in the bag for his team:

I have now collected the full set having been told by various people that I am voting for all three candidates! 

I forgot to mention another Australian resonance - there was some preferencing disinfo doing the rounds early in the campaign to the effect that a vote for Buettner might supposedly be a vote for Turlov.  But in fact if Buettner either pulled out or lost on the first round (even if he endorsed Turlov in either case) his voters would still be completely free agents in the vote between Turlov and Rosenstein.  (The system is you need an outright majority to win on the first ballot, failing which the last-placed candidate is eliminated (the glitch in which this was not automatic has been fixed) and the top two go to the next round.  If there is a tie for second the whole room votes to break the tie, which would be both strategically amusing and extremely tedious.)

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I'm here in Samarkand, Uzbekistan for the 2026 FIDE Congress including another FIDE election that proves to have quite a lot of resonance with my usual election coverage.  As I write it is the morning before voting day.  At this stage there are still three tickets running, but this was also true in 2018 and 2022, only for one of the tickets (the one I would have voted for in both cases) to withdraw.  This time the underdog ticket is making defiant noises that they're not going anywhere.

This is the first FIDE election in a very long time without a recontesting incumbent as such, and quickly I come to the matter of term limits.  When Kirsan Ilyumzhinov's long rein unravelled in a very messy fashion, Arkady Dvorkovich came to office with a promise to serve only two terms and a change in the FIDE statutes to accept this.  I was the lone voice of opposition on the floor of the Congress to the term limit proposal.  My opposition to it seemed to annoy the loser of that election more than the winner, and it was never minuted.  As Dvorkovich's second term proceeded it soon became clear that he intended to run for a third term and the term limits rule was quickly shelved.  I sat in my room at some ridiculous small hour Australian time listening to the Online General Assembly with disbelief as crawlers and sycophants boasted of how they had been against term limits all along.  Oh no you weren't, I was there and you did not report.  

The problem with term limits is that the General Assembly cannot bind its future decisions.  And yet we have at least the two "opposition" tickets at this election promising to reintroduce them.  Guys ... 

But as it turned out Dvorkovich was limited to two terms after all - not by his own decisions nor by the GA but rather by the European Union.  And this was an interesting example of how other elections have consequences for chess because while Viktor Orban was in power, Hungary was blocking the sanctioning of Dvorkovich by the EU.  But when Orban's government was dumped, Dvorkovich fell too.  The cause of his demise was remaining at least formally involved with the Russian Chess Federation while it was running unauthorised tournaments in parts of occupied Ukraine, and also some language he had used describing the occupiers in a way that implied they were legitimate residents.  Arguably these were "gotchas" in Australian parlance, but that's what happens in politics.

Dvorkovich, who won easily against a Ukraine-motivated protest ticket in 2022 with former world champion Viswanathan Anand as his deputy, was going to run again with a new deputy, Timur Turlov, the President of the Kazakhstan Federation.  But with Dvorkovich stepping aside after being sanctioned the ticket became Turlov/Anand.  Dvorkovich remains heavily involved at this Congress, supporting the Turlov ticket; at times I have seen him so many times that I am sure there must be three of him in my hotel.

The main challenger according to general expectation is Wadim Rosenstein from Germany whose running mate is Gordon Tang from Singapore.  The write-your-own-ticket outsiders are Jan-Henric Buettner (also of Germany) and Malcolm Pein from England, a familiar face at many FIDE Congress battles.  

It used to be the case that tickets ran six candidates including candidates for Treasurer and General Secretary but this has changed.  Turlov has faced scrutiny over who he might appoint to executive positions while the other tickets have been openly advertising their intended picks (including in Rosenstein's case Australian Anastasia Sorokina as Treasurer).

Battle Of The Entrepreneurs

I have met all three candidates for various lengths of time, as well as their campaign teams and in writing this article I have tried to disregard impressions that came from private off the record meetings with candidates and focus on their public personas.  I have also tried to not inject anything that should give anyone any strong hint who I might vote for, sssshhh it's a secret ballot!  Remarkably compared to past presidential tickets, all the three candidates for President are very successful businessmen in their own right,and two of them are only in their thirties.  Turlov is a banker and financier and a multi-billionaire.  Rosenstein is another billionaire and runs WR Group, a firm with involvements in logistics, certification, engineering and real estate among other things.  Buettner has been around a little longer than the other two and was a venture capitalist and early internet pioneer around the turn of the century, later buying a historic estate and building a luxury resort on it.  

Rosenstein - the only one of the three with a current FIDE rating (albeit in rapid and blitz, where he is around strong club-level standard) has been a major chess promoter and sponsor since late 2022, including creating a major new top tier tournament, the WR Group Masters.  Buettner has been a promoter of "freestyle chess", a variant also known as "Chess 960" and the now largely cancelled "Fisher-Random" in which the starting position of the pieces is determined randomly through the game to prevent players relying on preparing set openings.  I've heard a few people call him names like "the shuffle chess guy" but the same label is used both disparagingly and in admiration by different people using it.  Turlov is the most experienced chess administrator, as well as his Kazakh presidency being the president of the International Schools Chess Federation and the Turkic Chess Association.

In a world where candidates are, well, chessplayers, Rosenstein brings a definite X factor, a sense of turbocharged energy and of a man who doesn't like to sit still (metaphorically).  He's the unpredictable rockstar candidate in this field.  Turlov is more conventional and without the same edge so may come across as square but has no lack of affection from his strongest followers (and the people voting here are chessplayers anyway).  He also has a strong suit game and is impossibly tall.  Buettner is an entertaining speaker who is in the election business for a good time not a long time; he has said if he is not elected then he will not run again.  

With all the candidates being loaded, it's to be expected that this would be a rich campaign.  But unlike Tromso 2014, the Congress is confined to a recently built hotel complex that is removed from downtown Samarkand (indeed in a kind of gated district), so there is no appearance of election posters through the city (not that I ever saw the point of that move anyway).  The often silly trinketing of delegates of years past has also been scaled back and largely replaced by ticket lunches and parties, though the odd showbag is still in evidence.  (I claim a draw by threefold repetition of a certain ticket giving out power banks.  Nice thought but have you any idea what a pain it is to transport those things on planes these days?  Guys ...)  The most obvious presence of the two big tickets has been on their stands at the Exhibition area near the Olympiad playing hall (depicted above) - complete with duelling robotics displays.  The Rosenstein and Turlov tickets also have hospitality areas, and Buettner/Pein have their own little patch (which I found by accident) in a corner of the hotel I am staying in.

What is FIDE's path forward?

As mentioned previously I think that FIDE did pretty well under Dvorkovich's first term.  The second one not so much, and the Verification Committee reports lay bare that FIDE is down 1.7 million euro in two years, with half a million being caused by of all things currency conversion losses, to the point where FIDE's reserves are depleting and development funding is being diverted to salaries.  (That's not the whole story though, a downturn in development being partly because of federations not applying for it.)

Especially with FIDE's penchant for attracting awfully expensive legal cases, this really isn't sustainable and FIDE needs more money from somewhere.  Both Turlov and Rosenstein will in essence bring money to the table themselves (at least we hope they will, delegates with short memories may have forgotten Ilyumzhinov's $20 million "bullshit" promise from 2014) while the Buettner/Pein ticket proposes that their clean reputation will bring sponsors to the table.  Anyone interested can read more about the tickets and their promises at the links to their campaigns that I have posted with their names above, but a warning that if you consume too much electoral material from this election you may come away with a strong impression that you've seen multiple copies of the same AI largely agreeing with each other.  There is actually a fair amount of agreement in what the campaigns are pitching.  Everyone seems to recognise that a fault of FIDE under Dvorkovich was that it was too vertical; decisions that in the bad old days would have been the subject of detailed consultation with Federations were taken and changes to regulations made quickly, and not always for the better.  

Elections have consequences for commission members and FIDE staff.  Many commission members are also delegates and I have heard of cases where the desire to stay on a commission will affect how a delegate votes.  

The Campaign

One of the more curious flashpoints early in the campaign was an online presidential debate hosted by chess.com. This was so important to the campaign apparently that I as one of the 200-ish people who actually vote did not know it was on until about twelve hours after.  At the debate Rosenstein gave a very brief introductory statement then disconnected (obviously intentionally, a very online chess thing to do) leaving Turlov and Buettner to debate each other (and Turlov was then cute enough to thank Rosenstein for giving them more time).  Rosenstein pulling the plug was widely criticised but there is a minority view that Rosenstein was trying to show he was above spending an hour bickering especially given that he was not pitching to the voting audience.  I suspect many readers of this site will enjoy Ilya Merenzon's review of this debate.  A later debate at the Expo Centre in Samarkand had a similar outcome with Rosenstein not appearing at all.  I didn't know this one was on either. Rosenstein also didn't show at a debate at the African assembly but he did appear at the Asian one where he spoke at more length; in this case it was Buettner/Pein who got the most audience questions.

The campaign has featured a heavy dose of negative campaigning, virtually all of it on the subject of Russia, which is odd given that a lot of delegates really don't care about geopolitics.  Given that the previous President was sanctioned for his Russia ties tickets have been keen to show that this could happen to their rivals.  Turlov, who was born in Russia, was found to have still held Russian citizenship at least as recently as 2018.  He states that he renounced it in 2022; in echoes of Australia's Section 44 dramas there have been some calls for documentary evidence to be posted, but not a lot of interest in demanding it from delegates on the ground.  Turlov has very openly taken legal action for defamation against David Llada, a Spanish chess journalist and candidate for a Vice-President spot, over his claims that Turlov is a Russian citizen.  The case was filed in of all places Michigan.

Turlov is in fact currently sanctioned by Ukraine, which opponents have been keen to argue is a stepping stone for being sanctioned by the EU.  The major chess publishing and software company Chessbase also had its German accounts suspended immediately after Turlov acquired it.  Rosenstein has also come under fire over claims about his businesses profiting from and indirectly funding (through taxes) the Ukraine war.  He has denied the claims and said that he withdrew from Russia leaving only paper companies, but evidence of continuing profits has since also been produced by opponents.  (There is a lot of material about this out there for anyone who wants to look for it). 

Attempts to link Buettner and Pein to Russia would be obviously futile but there have been attempts to link them to Turlov (mostly on the student political level of "you were talking to Arkady in the lobby!".  Almost everyone talks to Arkady in the lobby).  Nonetheless the relationship between the Rosenstein and Buettner camps is hardly one of co-operative opposition; for Australian audiences they are a bit like the online support bases of Labor and the Greens.  Both completely distrust each other and the Rosenstein forces genuinely believe that Buettner will do a deal with Turlov and withdraw.  Buettner/Pein countered this by saying they had offered Turlov/Anand a deal in which Turlov would withdraw.  This amusing claim was accompanied ("buttressed" is not the right word) by the one and only poll-shaped object that I have seen for this election with the Buettner/Pein ticket claiming to have spoken to about 150 delegates with results of 41% for them 26% Turlov 19% Rosenstein and 14% undecided.  (They omitted 0.7% who they've talked to but actually haven't asked.)  These figures are generally considered to be good for a laugh but they hide a truth that several delegates will in fact tell every ticket that they are voting for it.  

The campaign has seen a record level of litigous behaviour as tickets and their accomplices try to get opposing delegates rubbed out, or as internal federation disputes flow up to FIDE level.  Most of the dozens of complaints have been unsuccessful.  A complaint by the Turlov ticket against Rosenstein over his sponsorship deal with the German Chess Federation (essentially alleging that he bought their vote and the delegate position by sponsoring them, in reality it looked like a fishing expedition for details of the sponsorship contract) was dismissed by the chair of the Ethics and Disciplinary Commission, but not before producing hours of tense courtroom drama in an open public session.  Both Turlov and Rosenstein were present in person as their lawyers traded barbs with Rosenstein showing up in a t-shirt and jeans looking like he was in the dock for a framed charge of double murder.  This was a sign of how this election breaks old alliances as the former German federation President Ingrid Lauterbach was called by the Turlov side as a witness only to face a very full-on cross-examination from Rosenstein's lawyer Ian Wilkinson, in the past a frequent supporter of reform tickets.  In the latest from the law courts, Rosenstein has lodged an eleventh-hour bid with the Court of Arbitration for Sport to have the Turlov ticket disqualified.  

Prospects

I do not go around asking delegates who they are voting for - it is very hard to do this representatively.  However of people who I have talked with about what they think will happen, most but by no means all think that Turlov is ahead and perhaps improving.  Nobody so far is saying it isn't close.  Everybody who has discussed it with me says that it will inevitably go to a second ballot assuming Buettner doesn't withdraw.  At the same time there is a widespread perception that the Buettner ticket doesn't have that much support (figures like a dozen votes are common - some suggest even less while others suggest they may be starting to take votes from Rosenstein) and I would suggest given the vagaries of knowing who will vote for who that a second ballot is not inevitable at all.  Rosenstein-backed candidates have lost all three contested continental elections including a 29-12 defeat in the Americas (though in that case the candidate is involved in a legal controversy over alleged cross-border abduction of her own child, of which she was convicted in one country). Rosenstein has very strong support in Oceania (mostly directly, some may vote for Buettner on the first ballot) but Oceania is only 13 votes, and Turlov is understood to be well ahead in Africa.  

I have added in a few things I forgot to mention in the first release of this article as I was rushing to get to breakfast in time; updates will follow when the election is underway tomorrow.  The speaking order for 15-minute speeches and ballot order is Rosenstein, Buettner, Turlov.  There will also be many minor elections including a 17-way race for what is expected to be four Vice-President positions. (It would have been 18 but for the death just before the Congress of one of the incumbents Georgios Makropolous, whose experience will be missed by FIDE especially as the present administration has at many times been procedurally naive).  Voting will again be by secret ballot with mobile phones not allowed in the booth so voters cannot record their vote, after a farcical and soon abandoned experiment with iPad voting at the 2024 Congress.  (Not only did the iPads violate the secret ballot principle as Makropoulos pointed out, but it also turned out it was possible to vote multiple times.)

Disclaimer: This article represents my own positions only and not necessarily those of the Australian Chess Federation.  All feedback in response to this article in any form will be considered on the public record, especially if stated otherwise.