A kingpin in world chess, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov on Sunday will seek a third term as president of Kalmykia, a Russian republic peopled by Buddhists descended from a Mongol tribe he is accused of ruling like a medieval potentate.
The 40-year-old businessman, head of the venerable Lausanne-based World Chess Federation (Fide), also governs the semi-autonomous republic on Russia’s steppes bordering the Caspian Sea, 1 200 kilometers south-east from Moscow.
Kalmykia’s 320 000 population are to choose among 11 candidates in Sunday’s poll which is widely regarded as a foregone conclusion as Ilyumzhinov, first elected in 1993, seeks a new five-year term. ”Most of the population are passive and just accept that you can’t do anything against the powers-that-be,” said the main opposition candidate, Alexander Ledzhinov.
Under Ilyumzhinov’s eccentric rule, children are forced to learn chess at school and he has erected a $30-million Olympic-style Chess Coliseum just outside the capital Elista called Chess City. The gleaming complex, built to stage the 1998 Chess Olympiad, is a bizarre extravagance in a place where hot water is still a luxury and the average salary is $50 a month.
The president, who has a taste for imported luxury cars, including a fleet of Rolls-Royces, came to power promising to provide ”a cellphone for every shepherd” out in the steppes and make Kalmykia a ”second Kuwait.”
But nine years later, say his critics, he has not fulfilled any of his electoral promises but instead built an autocratic and corrupt regime by seizing control of the media and cowing his opponents.
”Kalmykia is a feudal state ruled by a khan. During the nine years of his rule, the republic’s entire infrastructure has been destroyed, 75% of the population live below the poverty line,” charged Boris Nemtsov, leader of Russia’s centrist Union of Rightist Forces (SPS).
Ilyumzhinov, who was elected head of Fide in 1995, a feat achieved, it was said, by offering gifts to Third World delegates, faces re-election to the globetrotting post this November. But he insists he has created his own wealth.
”A rich president has no need to steal from the budget,” he said recently. ”The current state budget is around $40-million. Well, just one of my companies has a budget of more than $100-million.”
But it remains a mystery where the Kalmyk leader gets his money from in a place that survives mainly on sheep, caviar smuggling and handouts from Moscow.
”If he is so rich why has he never declared his worth? All his wealth lies in the regional coffers,” declared Valery Badmayev, from the local branch of the liberal Yabloko party.
Of particular concern is the ”tax-free zone” set up by the president, which has attracted some 9 000 companies from across Russia according to an internal government memorandum leaked to the media three months ago.
According to Yabloko, $30-million disappears each year because of the tax haven, under which companies get tax breaks in return for funneling money into a shadowy presidential fund. There are signs of impatience in Moscow.
Regional interior minister Timofei Sasykov, widely seen as an ally of Ilyumzhinov, was summoned to Moscow this week amid allegations he had covered up crimes such as drugs trafficking, poaching and contraband oil production.
The Kalmyk president’s failure to observe democratic niceties is also an embarrassment. Re-elected in 1995 as the only candidate with 85% of the vote, the only people who dare to openly criticize him are a few dozen opposition politicians, who mainly represent Yabloko, the Communists and the SPS.
Four years ago, the editor of a relentlessly-harassed opposition newspaper Larissa Ludina was assassinated by two men who had worked for the president.
Of the 11 contenders in Sunday’s poll — which will go to a second round if he fails to win over fifty percent of the vote — only three are actually opposition candidates.
But the widespread view is that the Kremlin, which has not put forward its own candidate, will look the other way. ”Kalmykia is not a region of particular concern to the Kremlin. It is a small, godforsaken place which has no resources worth fighting for,” said Nikolai Petrov of the Moscow Carnegie Centre think-tank. – Sapa-AFP