HELSINKI (AP) – Former world champion Garry Kasparov was hoping to oust the longtime head of the World Chess Federation on Monday in a bitter contest on the sidelines of an international tournament in Norway.
Kasparov, a vocal critic of Vladimir Putin, is challenging Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, a wealthy businessman known to be supported by the Russian president.
Ilyumzhinov, who once claimed to have visited an alien spaceship, has headed the governing body of chess, known by its French acronym FIDE, for 19 years.
The chess federation was expected to choose the winner in a closed vote Monday in the Norwegian Arctic city of Tromsoe, where more than 3,000 contestants are taking part in the 2014 Chess Olympiad.
Kasparov, who at 22 in 1985 became the youngest chess world champion, has described Putin as an arrogant dictator and in a recent AP interview he accused Ilyumzhinov of “working with Russian oligarchs in the Kremlin.”