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Chess champ manoeuvres to take a piece of Putin

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  • Chess champ manoeuvres to take a piece of Putin

    Chess champ manoeuvres to take a piece of Putin
    by Jeremy Page

    The Australian
    August 4, 2005 Thursday All-round Country Edition

    Despite a rough opening, Garry Kasparov is determined to topple the
    political king, writes Jeremy Page in Moscow

    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
    chessboard, roughed up by police, pelted with eggs and tomato sauce
    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 Vladimir Putin.

    Kasparov, 42, is not used to being the underdog, having dominated
    chess since 1985 when he became its 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,"
    Kasparov said.

    "If the Government doesn't change, then we must change the Government."

    Unlike most of 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 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," Kasparov 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, oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky 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 Kasparov has suffered is being hit on the head with
    a chessboard by a young activist in April and roughed up by police
    outside Khodorkovsky's court hearing in May.

    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 Kasparov went to southern Russia in June
    to drum up grassroots 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."

    In Dagestan, 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 movie
    Madagascar there.

    Then he was hit with eggs covered in tomato sauce in Vladikavkaz,
    the regional capital.

    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.

    Kasparov says he believes local authorities were under orders from
    Putin's personal representative in the region, Dmitry Kozak.

    "If they act in this way, they are scared -- scared of anyone talking
    with the people," Kasparov said. "If people don't like my ideas,
    then fine, but at least let them speak with me."

    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 school
    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."
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