The Addis Ababa Vote-Buying Allegations
By Douglas C. · Sun, 06 Sep 2026
A one-vote election for the presidency of the African Chess Confederation is still unresolved more than a month later, and new reporting has surfaced specific allegations, and a web of connections to the FIDE presidential campaign, that go well beyond a routine post-election dispute.
A one-vote election for the presidency of the African Chess Confederation is still unresolved more than a month later, and new reporting has surfaced specific allegations, and a web of connections to the FIDE presidential campaign, that go well beyond a routine post-election dispute.What happened in Addis AbabaBenard Wanjala of Kenya beat incumbent ACC President Tshepiso Lopang of Botswana by a single vote, 25 to 24, on July 27. FIDE confirmed Wanjala's election, with Andre Lewaks of South Africa elected Vice President for Technical matters on the same slate. Lopang has since formally challenged the result and accused Wanjala of vote-buying.The specific allegationAccording to reporting by Rook Review, voting delegate Nicolas Carbonela stated in writing that at roughly 1 a.m. on election day, Wanjala asked him to come down to the lobby of the Skylight Hotel in Addis Ababa and handed him an envelope containing $1,500, which Carbonela says he understood as an attempt to influence his vote. Carbonela says he refused the money and has since provided supporting evidence for his complaint. Separately, unverified claims have circulated that other delegates received envelopes described as "campaign material" in the early hours of election day, claims that don't establish what those envelopes actually contained or that any rule was broken. None of this constitutes a proven finding, Wanjala has not been shown to have done anything improper, and he's entitled to contest the allegations through FIDE's own procedures. But given the specificity involved, a named delegate, a stated amount, a location and approximate time, in an election decided by one vote, it's the kind of claim that's difficult to wave off as ordinary post-election noise.Where this connects to the FIDE presidential raceThe dispute would likely have stayed a purely African chess story if not for what happened after the result. Timur Turlov's presidential campaign publicly congratulated Wanjala on Instagram, referencing the 25-24 scoreline directly and saying he looked forward to working closely with him. That post doesn't establish any formal relationship between Wanjala and Turlov's ticket, and there's no evidence Turlov had any involvement in the disputed events in Addis Ababa itself. But it does mean the winner of a contested, single-vote continental election is now publicly aligned with one of the three FIDE presidential campaigns while the questions about how he won remain open.That connection has drawn scrutiny to others tied to Wanjala's ACC campaign. Dennis Wandina, a Kenyan chess figure who has worked alongside Wanjala, and Mark Glukhovsky, a Russian chess official, have both reportedly been involved in Wanjala's campaign, according to people familiar with it. Glukhovsky's name is already familiar from Turlov's own campaign, he told Peter Heine Nielsen on the Chicken Chess Club podcast that Glukhovsky had "advised him a little bit" but wasn't a senior figure and had only properly met him after Turlov entered the presidential race. His reported involvement in a separate, disputed continental election adds a new data point to a name that's now surfaced in more than one campaign-adjacent controversy this cycle.None of these associations amount to evidence of coordinated wrongdoing. Lewaks ran on Wanjala's slate, which doesn't mean he knew about or took part in anything improper. Wandina and Glukhovsky's precise roles in the campaign remain unclear. Turlov's public message to Wanjala is a courtesy, not proof of coordination. What the pattern does establish is that a widening circle of people connected to the FIDE presidential race now have some relationship to an ACC election that a formal complaint alleges involved a cash payment to a delegate hours before the vote.Who's to blame?The specific factual questions here are answerable rather than speculative: who distributed any envelopes, to which delegates, at what time, and whether hotel security footage from that night exists and has been preserved. An actual investigation, drawing on the complaint, any witness statements, and available records, would serve everyone involved, clearing Wanjala's name if the allegations don't hold up, or giving African federations a clear answer if they do. With the ACC's new leadership now publicly tied to a FIDE presidential campaign just weeks before that election, and past election disputes forming part of the pattern this current campaign has already exposed, the pressure for a resolved, published outcome is only going to grow.