Sunday 3 July 2016

Offer a draw and come back next week?

Australia had a general election yesterday, and as they say in chess, the position is unclear. When I went to bed late last night the conservative side had a slight edge, but when I awoke this morning, the Labor party seemed to have equalised. It seems that neither side will gain a necessary majority, and another election may be on the cards, albeit with a few pieces suffering from that rare fate (in chess anyway) of de-motion.
Speaking of elections, I keep seeing a rumour that a palace coup is underway in FIDE against the current President. While the source of the rumour causes me to file it under "I'll believe it when I see it", given how the normal electoral process operates in FIDE, this may be the only mechanism that could change who heads FIDE, even if it did not change who runs it.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

when i click on "All Parties" at your voting results link, where is the famous Australian Motoring Enthusiasts party? are they giving up their seat, with/out a fight?

Au said...

To Anonymous: AME has a Senate seat (in QLD), the results you were looking at are for other seats.

They have 3,321 votes, here: http://www.abc.net.au/news/federal-election-2016/results/senate/#sqld

Anonymous said...

To Au: you are wrong, the party is originally from QLD, but is everywhere now in AU. And the seat they won was in Victoria. They have over 18000 votes there, with 50% more votes to count.

But it makes you wonder, has anyone ever started a Chess Party?

ThanklessTemerity said...

If I read the "palace coup" correctly, I don't think there is much chance of it. Sounds like an attempt to hustle Kirsan out by press rumours, but if it needs Ethics approval ("cause") in addition to 50% plus 1, that's already probably too high of a bar. Unless South America (as Shaun knows) turns on Kirsan, there's no way to reach 2/3 of course, though I would guess (as others have said) that Asia and others would support a sheikh (not so sure about Filatov).

Weott said...

BTW, if you think FIDE is anomalous in "sporting" international orgs, check out the International Shooting Sports Federation. Its prez has been there almost 40 years (RaƱa), with a big election dispute in 2015, and this upcoming month has multiple CAS cases on tap. Danailov almost looks tame compared to these guys.