FIDE - Direct Democracy??

[Bob Armstrong]

FB King Chess Academy Stated:

"We hope Sir Garry Kasparov would amend the policy for election process for FIDE President, if he will win. We strongly recommend election policy of American President where every citizen have chance to vote. Right of vote to every FIDE Rated player would restrict any kind of 'GATE' scam.

FIDE never interfere in internal affairs of any country. Online election process for any institution is possible even in non-democratic countries. So, every hurdle has solution."

Here is the comment of the Cooperative Chess Coalition (CCC) FB Chess Discussion Group (https://www.facebook.com/groups/coop...hesscoalition/)

"Do you think FIDE should go to "direct democracy" - every FIDE-rated player having a vote for the FIDE Executive, just as if they were "members of FIDE"? Right now the national chess Federations are the "members" of FIDE, and they vote. But can ordinary chess players now "influence" their national federations how to vote what their people want? Or are they impervious to the pleas of their unwashed masses, and so THE ONLY route to ordinary players having power is to get a direct vote for the FIDE executive. If a presidential candidate promised this, would you vote for them? Would you trust that candidate to actually do it when they got elected? And how could the President alone do it? He'd have to have a majority of national federations on his side. And why would they give up "their vote"? So are we again back to the problem that ordinary chess players problem is: they must take over the reigns of their national federations FIRST?"

Shared by Bob Armstrong, 1 of 4 CCC FB Co-Managers

[Vlad Dobrich]

Re: FIDE - Direct Democracy??

If that were so, wouldn't world chess be almost entirely controlled by Russia? No doubt, they have the massive advantage in numbers. If the numbers of titled players is an indication, then Canada would not be represented in any significant way.


Country rank by average rating of top 10 players
GMs IMs Total Titled
1 Russia 223 503 2227
2 Ukraine 81 198 505
3 China 34 26 128
4 France 47 101 371
5 Hungary 52 112 430
39 Canada 10 34 151

So the favored FIDE 'plums' - the World Junior , etc, would be decided by mostly Russia. Would that be desirable?

[Vlad Drkulec]

Re: FIDE - Direct Democracy??

I think that having a direct vote of individual chess players at FIDE would mean that you would have to have a fee for individual players in order to avoid vote buying and people stuffing the ballot box. Without it you could have an individual federation sign up one million members and determine the outcome of the election. The present process is deeply flawed but we should be careful that we don't make it worse.

[Vlad Dobrich]

Re: FIDE - Direct Democracy??

Some months ago, I predicted that FIDE would (soon?) be issuing individual membership cards which could slip into an ATM machine and give you your instant rating - for a fee, of course. And the card would confirm your FIDE membership as soon as you poked it into an ATM and transfered xxxEuros to FIDE :D :D :D

[Gary Ruben]

Re: FIDE - Direct Democracy??

FB King Chess Academy Stated:

"We hope Sir Garry Kasparov would amend the policy for election process for FIDE President, if he will win. We strongly recommend election policy of American President where every citizen have chance to vote. Right of vote to every FIDE Rated player would restrict any kind of 'GATE' scam.

I don't think they are understanding the process in the U.S.

The way I understand it, the citizens of each U.S. state are deciding how the representatives they send to the Electoral College will vote. Under the U.S. electoral college system it's possible for a candidate with a smaller popular vote amongst all the citizens who vote to become president.

As an example, in 2000, Al Gore had a popular vote of 48.38% while George W. Bush had a popular vote of 47.87%. In electoral college votes that translated to 271 votes for Bush and 266 votes for Gore. Bush became president with a smaller percentage of the popular vote.

That's not the first or only time a person with a smaller popular vote has become president.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0876793.html

[Nigel Hanrahan]

supplemental on US Electoral College

I don't think they are understanding the process in the U.S.

The way I understand it, the citizens of each U.S. state are deciding how the representatives they send to the Electoral College will vote. Under the U.S. electoral college system it's possible for a candidate with a smaller popular vote amongst all the citizens who vote to become president.

For most of US history, those who lived in Washington, D.C. were not entitled to vote for President as the District of Columbia was not a state, had no state electoral college, etc.. It also "just happened" that Washington, D.C. was home to the largest African-American voting block in the USA. I believe that situation has changed now and those who live in Washington, D.C. CAN vote for President.

Countries like the USA, Canada, and the UK (much of the Anglosphere) continue to use the primitive "first past the post" system, in a variety of forms, as a result of which these votes in which the "winning" candidate (or party) has less votes than the "losing" candidate happens with some regularity. For example, M. Thatcher's Conservatives received far fewer votes than the Labour Party at the time (1979), but still formed a majority government.

Come to think of it, S. Harper is PM of Canada despite never getting 50% of the votes (for his party). Liberals can berate NDPers endlessly, claiming the latter "split" the vote, in wild contempt of the facts.

One day, we will catch up with the rest of the world. Or not.

[Nigel Hanrahan]

Re: FIDE - Direct Democracy??

FB King Chess Academy Stated:

"We hope Sir Garry Kasparov ... (etc.)

I didn't know Kasparov had been Knighted. That's quite an under-promotion.

In any case, the FIDE corruption issues are like this to me: we have one bunch of corrupt officials and another bunch of wannabe corrupt officials want to replace them. It reminds me of a comment Michael Moore once made about US politics, in which he said US elections consisted of deciding which part of the 1% (or 5%) was going to swindle them this time around.

Build chess up in the National Federations and the other stuff will fall into place. My two bits.

[Garland Best]

Re: FIDE - Direct Democracy??

There are a lot of issues with the "one FIDE member, one vote" concept. Many of the FIDE countries have weak democratic backgrounds. I can see all sorts of election rigging going on within these countries. And what are the eligibility rules? Do you need a FIDE membership? Does the validity of your vote depend on your playing experience, your rating, your age? Better the devil you know.

Democracy is the worst form of government - with the exception of all other forms.

[Fred Harvey]

Re: FIDE - Direct Democracy??

'Democracy is the worst form of government - with the exception of all other forms.'

Perhaps you should give credit to Churchill, who first suggested this....?

[Garland Best]

Re: FIDE - Direct Democracy??

I thought the phrase predated Churchill. Nevertheless, I knowingly quoted without giving the source. Thanks.