7 August 2022

Arkady Dvorkovich Reelected as FIDE President

The elections were held at the FIDE General Assembly in Chennai.

Photo: Lennart Ootes / FIDE
Photo: Lennart Ootes / FIDE


Arkady Dvorkovich has been reelected for a second term as President of the International Chess Federation (FIDE) with 157 votes, against 16 for his electoral opponent, the Ukrainian chess Grandmaster Andrii Baryshpolets. A third candidate, the French Bachar Kouatly, withdrew his candidacy after giving his speech, before the voting started.

Five-time World Chess Champion Viswanathan Anand, who was part of Dvorkovich's ticket, is the new FIDE Deputy President.

The elections took place during the FIDE General Assembly in Chennai, held alongside the Chess Olympiad, one of FIDE's flagship events. 

Born in Moscow on March 26, 1972, Arkady Dvorkovich was first elected as FIDE President in October 2018, succeeding Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. Despite being questioned by some due to his nationality and to the fact that in the past he held important positions in the Russian government, Dvorkovich's landslide election victory shows that he has earned the trust of FIDE's member federations - and the wider chess community.

"Thank you so much for supporting our great team; Vishy Anand, Mahir Mammadov, Zhu Chen, and everybody else, who has been supporting us during this period ", said Arkady Dvorkovich after the reelection. "Many thanks to my fellow Council members for your joined work and, of course, to each of you. I greatly respect each vote and I'm really grateful that you supported a positive agenda that we're trying to formulate for FIDE and that we've been trying to implement throughout these years. We are looking forward to working with each of you during the next four years. I feel really honoured, privileged and happy to do so for you as one team and one family. Thank you".

CFR President Andrey Filatov: "My congratulations to Arkady Dvorkovich and his team on this convincing victory! Such a wide margin, 157 votes for Dvorkovich and 16 for his rival, shows that Russia is not isolated. I thank the whole team, particularly Mark Glukhovsky and Mikhail Kobalia, for a successful pre-election work and support of our candidate". 

Dvorkovich's second term will also be the last, as one of the first tasks that he undertook shortly after being elected in 2018 was to renew the FIDE Charter, introducing term limits, along with other democratic reforms. Among them, the "FIDE Presidential Board" was replaced by the "FIDE Council", effectively limiting the President's powers.

Information: FIDE, CFR