Call for Emergency ECU General Assembly
By Douglas C. · Fri, 25 Sep 2026
Malcolm Pein has published an open letter to European Chess Union delegates and federation presidents calling ECU President Zurab Azmaiparashvili's endorsement of Wadim Rosenstein "unacceptable," and has moved to trigger a formal accountability process against him, one day before FIDE's own presidential vote.
Malcolm Pein has published an open letter to European Chess Union delegates and federation presidents calling ECU President Zurab Azmaiparashvili's endorsement of Wadim Rosenstein "unacceptable," and has moved to trigger a formal accountability process against him, one day before FIDE's own presidential vote.Pein's standing here goes beyond the presidential raceThis isn't simply a rival campaign taking a shot at an opponent's high-profile backer. Pein signs the letter as ECU Delegate for England and ECU Honorary Vice President, positions that give him genuine standing inside the organization Azmaiparashvili leads, separate from his own role as Jan Henric Buettner's running mate in the FIDE race. That dual position is worth keeping in mind either way: Pein has a legitimate institutional basis to raise this, and he also has an obvious campaign interest in denying Rosenstein the benefit of a prominent endorsement two weeks before the vote.What the letter arguesPein's core claim is that Azmaiparashvili endorsed a FIDE presidential candidate on behalf of the ECU itself, something Pein says "contravenes the most basic principles of governance and ECU independence." He states plainly that the ECU Board was not consulted before Azmaiparashvili issued his public statements, and argues the endorsement betrayed not just the office's own governing principles but the delegates and federations who'd supported Azmaiparashvili's own election. His stated goal is accountability rather than a personal dispute: he says he wants delegates to have the chance to consider new ECU leadership, and that the federations who backed Azmaiparashvili "should be able to hold him to account."The mechanism Pein is invokingPein is calling for an Emergency General Assembly, which under the ECU's own statutes must be held within one month once 18 federations vote in favor of holding one. He says a formal letter requesting that vote will follow. This is a real procedural lever, not just a public statement, if it gathers the required support, it forces an actual institutional reckoning over Azmaiparashvili's leadership.Why the timing is about as pointed as it getsThis lands the day before FIDE's General Assembly convenes to elect the federation's next president. Azmaiparashvili's endorsement had already been controversial enough to force the ECU itself to publicly clarify it hadn't institutionally backed anyone, a clarification we covered at the time. Pein's letter escalates that dispute from an internal clarification into an open, public attempt to remove the person responsible for it, timed to land at the exact moment it can do the most damage to Rosenstein's campaign heading into the vote.The closing linePein ended the letter directly addressing Azmaiparashvili: "Zurab, this is one move you won't be able to take back." Early reaction in the comments has been sympathetic to Pein's framing, one respondent called it "a real shame to read" and argued the ECU, built on a large volunteer base, needs to function as a genuinely democratic body that represents its membership rather than one that can be committed to a political position by its president alone.