Presidential Tickets Confirmed – Key Candidate is OUT
By Douglas C. · Mon, 27 Jul 2026
The dust has settled on one of the strangest nomination periods in FIDE's history. When the July 26 deadline passed, three tickets had cleared the bar to contest the presidency of the International Chess Federation, but one was missing.
The dust has settled on one of the strangest nomination periods in FIDE's history. When the July 26 deadline passed, three tickets had cleared the bar to contest the presidency of the International Chess Federation: Timur Turlov and Viswanathan Anand, Wadim Rosenstein and Gordon Tang, and Jan Henric Buettner and Malcolm Pein. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the man who ran FIDE for 23 years and declared his bid in the week prior, is not among them.The three ticketsTurlov / Anand is the ticket born out of crisis. Turlov had originally signed on as running mate to incumbent Arkady Dvorkovich, but when the EU sanctioned Dvorkovich in late July, that arrangement collapsed overnight. Rather than step back, the Kazakh billionaire and Freedom Holding founder moved to the top of his own ticket, bringing five-time World Champion Anand on as his deputy.Rosenstein / Tang is the closest thing to an establishment reform ticket. The German organiser, founder of WR Chess, has spent recent years building relationships across European federations, and pairs here with Singaporean businessman Gordon Tang.Buettner / Pein rounds out the field. Buettner, the entrepreneur behind Freestyle Chess, has run more of a listening tour than a traditional campaign, with English organiser and longtime FIDE reform voice Malcolm Pein as his deputy.Kirsan didn't make itIlyumzhinov declared his candidacy on July 20, and the Chess Federation of Russia endorsed him four days later, choosing him over Dvorkovich's fallback option. On paper, that looked like a real fourth ticket. In practice, it ran straight into a wall: the CFR itself has been suspended by FIDE since earlier this year for continuing to run events in occupied Ukraine, which makes it, at minimum, deeply uncertain whether the federation was in any position to formally submit a nomination on his behalf.What happens between now and SamarkandThe presidency won't actually be decided until the FIDE General Assembly, held September 26–27 in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, alongside the 46th Chess Olympiad. Roughly 200 member federations each get a single vote, which means the next two months are essentially a courtship campaign: manifesto tours, federation visits, and a hard push for the African bloc's 54 votes, historically the decisive swing constituency in FIDE elections. Nominations for the four elected Vice President seats stay open a while longer, until August 26, so expect some of the horse-trading around those roles to shape how each ticket's final coalition looks by the time delegates gather in Samarkand. Anand, meanwhile, continues in his role as interim president, steering FIDE through the campaign period without a horse in the race himself.