IF CHESS is mental torture, as Garry Kasparov once said, then Russian politics
has not been much kinder to him since his dramatic debut this year.
In the past five months he has been hit over the head with a chess board,
roughed up by police, pelted with eggs and tomato ketchup, and bombarded
with verbal abuse.
All this after he announced in March that he was retiring from competitive
chess to dedicate himself to the political fight against President Putin.
Mr Kasparov, 42, is not used to being the underdog, having dominated chess
since 1985 when he become the youngest world champion.
Yet, far from being intimidated, he is throwing himself into the toughest —
and riskiest — contest of his life with all the flair and aggression that
made him the greatest chess player to date.
“There’s only one chance for this country — if the regime collapses,” he told The
Times. “If the Government doesn’t change, then we must change the
Government.”
Unlike most of Mr Putin’s opponents, he is not talking about running in the
next parliamentary elections in 2007 or standing for president in 2008.
He is travelling around Russia calling openly for a peaceful revolution like
those that rocked Georgia in 2003 and Ukraine last year. The trigger, he
predicts, will be an attempt by the Kremlin to change the constitution to
allow President Putin to serve a third term instead of stepping down in
2008.
“Next year the country will go through a political crisis which will decide
the future of the country,” he said. “We’re talking about mass protests.”
Such talk is highly provocative — if not seditious — when the Kremlin has
spent much of the past five years silencing political opponents.
In May Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the oil tycoon, was jailed for nine years in what
was widely seen as punishment for meddling in politics.
Then Mikhail Kasyanov, a former Prime Minister, became the target of a
corruption probe last month after hinting at running for President in 2008.
So far, the worst Mr Kasparov has suffered is being hit on the head with a
chess board by a youth activist in April and roughed up by police outside
the courthouse where Mr Khodorkovsky was on trial in May. “I hope that if
something really goes bad, we’ll hear more than mumbling from the West,” Mr
Kasparov said.
In public, Russian officials have responded to his challenge with disdain —
dismissing him as a political non-entity who appeals only to the West. Many
political analysts agree, saying most Russians have not heard about his
campaign and would not support him because of his Caucasian and Jewish
roots. He was born in Azerbaijan to an Armenian mother and a Jewish father.
But at the same time, officials are going to extraordinary lengths to prevent
such a respected celebrity from entering the political fray.
That much became clear when Mr Kasparov went to southern Russia in June to
drum up grass-roots support in Dagestan, North Ossetia, Stavropol and
Rostov.
“Unlike my critics, I go to the Russian regions,” he said. “It’s the only way
to learn the situation in my country because the media is under the
Kremlin’s strict control,” he said.
In Dagestan, local authorities blocked him from meeting refugees from
neighbouring Chechnya and even tried to stop him giving prizes at a
children’s chess tournament.
In North Ossetia, a meeting with Beslan residents in a cultural centre was
cancelled after officials hastily arranged a showing of the cartoon Madagascar
there. Then he was hit with eggs covered in tomato ketchup in Vladikavkaz,
the regional capital. Local officials accused him of trying to exploit last
year’s Beslan school siege, even though the victims’ mothers said that they
were keen to meet him.
At his next stops, in Stavropol and Rostov, the airports refused to let his
charter plane land. Hotels in Stavropol would not accept him and meetings in
both places had to be held outside after the venues developed “technical”
problems.
Mr Kasparov says that he believes local authorities were under orders from Mr
Putin’s representative in the region, Dmitry Kozak. “If they act in this
way, they are scared of anyone talking with the people,” Mr Kasparov said.
“If people don’t like my ideas, fine, but at least let them speak with me.”
Mr Kasparov dabbled in politics in the 1990s and, early last year, was voted
chairman of Committee 2008: Free Choice, a liberal group dedicated to
ensuring the next presidential election is free and fair.
But his real political awakening came after the Beslan siege, when the Kremlin
announced plans to abolish direct elections for regional governors.
This year he formed his own, more militant, group called the United Civil
Front.
“It’s extreme because the situation is extreme,” he said. “The Government is
violating the Russian constitution and limiting our rights to influence the
electoral process.”
MEET THE KING
Born April 13, 1963, in Baku, Azerbaijan
November 1985 Beat Anatoly Karpov to become the youngest
world champion at 22
2000 Lost world title to Russian grandmaster Vladimir
Kramnik. Retained world number one ranking until 2005
1996 Beat Deep Blue, IBM’s supercomputer, but lost to its
upgraded version the following year
March 2005 Retired from chess to devote time to Committee
2008: Free Choice, campaigning against Government of President Putin
THEY SAY
‘I’m a grandmaster but an awful lot of people are grandmasters these days.
Kasparov and I have the same title, but it’s a different planet.’
Jonathan Rowson, British chess champion, July 2005
‘The future of chess lies in the hands of this young man.’
Mikhail Botvinnik, former world champion (when Kasparov was 11)
‘If Kasparov won, he would feel like a god afterwards, and if he lost, his
dejection and rage would resist all forms of consolation.’
Fred Waitzkin, American writer, on the 1990 Kasparov-Karpov match
‘Forget the prize money. The fate of humanity is on the line, at least in
Garry Kasparov’s head.’
Maurice Ashley, the only African-American grandmaster, on the
Deep Blue-Kasparov final in 1997
HE SAYS
‘I have done everything I could in chess and more. Now I plan to use my
intellect and strategic thoughts in Russian politics.’
‘I believe that the country is moving in the wrong direction, therefore it
is necessary to help Russia, to help Russian citizens, to make the country
comfortable, just and free.’
‘I devote a certain amount of time to Russian politics, as every decent
person should do who opposes the dictator Vladimir Putin.’
March 2005
