Kasparov: The Grand Master -"It Ain't Chess"

Chess grandmasters have a well deserved reputation for eccentricity, Bobby Fischer's recent melodrama in Japan serving as exhibit A, but Gary Kasparov had always avoided the more flamboyant eccentricities in favor of the classics, ego and politics.

Many observers were surprised by Kasparov's announcement that he will run for President of Russia in March 2008 when current President Vladimir Putin steps down and is barred from running for a third consecutive term, but what's surprising is that so many people were surprised.

Kasparov has a long history of involvement in Russian politics. In 1990, he left the party and in May of that year took part in the creation of the Democratic Party of Russia. By June 1993, Kasparov was involved in the creation of the "Choice of Russia" bloc of parties and in 1996 he took part in the election campaign of Boris Yeltsin. In 2001 he voiced his support for the Russian television TV channel NTV.

After his retirement from chess in 2005, Kasparov returned to politics and created the United Civil Front, a social movement whose main goal is to "work to preserve electoral democracy in Russia." He has vowed to "restore democracy" to Russia by toppling the elected Russian president Vladimir Putin, of whom he is an outspoken critic.

Kasparov helped organize the Saint Petersburg Dissenters' March on March 3, 2007 and The March of the Dissenters on March 24, 2007, both involving several thousand people rallying against Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saint Petersburg Governor Valentina Matviyenko's policies. On April 14, he was briefly arrested by the Moscow police while heading for a demonstration and briefly detained.

What's most surprising to me is the fact that Kasparov has put his money where his mouth is so to speak. He has no chance of winning and runs a grave risk of imprisonment, and/or suffering an execution style killing. Although Russia is treated as a world power, under Putin it has become far more dictatorial and repressive than it's European counterparts. This ain't chess he's playing.

Posted by Garth Sullivan.