OneFide team reaches 93 countries

Political interferrence and undemocratic decision viewed in Argentina

The OneFide team announced the joinning of Israel and reaching of 93 secure national votes before the elections in Khanty Mansiysk. In an article on their official site, a sharp reaction on recent statements and actions by Karpov's team was published. Here is the whole text.

Statement by OneFide.com

Following a three hour marathon meeting in the Israeli Chess Federation, it was agreed to support the candidacy of current FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov for the forthcoming elections. President A Bushinski published this announcement in the media.

This brings our tally to 93 countries!

For those people who believe this may be a counting error, we regret to inform that we have removed Argentina from our list of supporters given the political pressure from the Argentinian Government to change their vote.

We refer to the previous statement by Kirsan and his views about political interference but unlike our opposition we respect that Federations have a free will to vote as they may desire. We also respect that we reflect this in our supporters count distinct from Mr Karpov and his team who desperately cling to countries who are not even supporting them.

This is a first in chess election history whereby a Candidate is bypassing Federations without respecting the democratic procedures within the Federation.

This contravenes clearly the principles of independence in sports and is even more shameful when he or his team try and replace a President of a Federation because he or she is not in agreement with them.

If our opposition is ready to undertake such undemocratic actions when not even in power, one worries about what they would do if they were running FIDE.

Full statement here