Retired from chess, Kasparov now aims to CHECKMATE PUTIN
December 18, 2006
ONCE the world's greatest chess player, Mr Garry Kasparov is now employing his formidable skills against his toughest opponent of all - Russian President Vladimir Putin.
At stake, he argues, is the fate of Russian democracy.
Mr Kasparov has devoted himself to politics since retiring from professional chess last year. He regards Mr Putin as a dictator whose authoritarian rule threatens to return Russia to a dark past, reported London's The Times.
Mr Kasparov, 43, is the most prominent name in The Other Russia, a coalition of opposition groups formed in an attempt to break Mr Putin's grip on the Kremlin at the March 2008 presidential elections.
Mr Kasparov compared Mr Putin's Russia to former dictator Augusto Pinochet's Chile and the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe.
He said: 'We are not fighting to win elections in Russia, we are fighting to have elections.'
Though he will not be a contender for the presidency, The Other Russia aims to create the conditions under which an anti-Putin candidate can win. But the fight will be tough.
President Putin enjoys 80 per cent approval ratings and most Russians want him to overturn a constitutional bar on a third term in office.
Many will back whomever Mr Putin endorses to succeed him and the President appears very confident, surrounded in the Kremlin by the siloviki - a hand-picked group of former KGB comrades who dominate Russia's political elite.
The chess grandmaster, however, sees cracks in the Kremlin wall and believes that Mr Putin will give him an opening for a counter-attack. Mr Kasparov argues that, despite the oil riches, the vast majority of Russians are increasingly facing economic hardship.
He said: 'I don't think we are seeing a super-confident Kremlin. It is not one Kremlin any more, the ruling elite is split into many different voices.'
Claiming the poisoning of the former spy, Mr Alexander Litvinenko, in London to be evidence of this power struggle, Mr Kasparov said: 'All the theories about what happened to him have in common that it was initiated by some Kremlin forces.
'The danger is there and that is what Western leaders fail to recognise, that Mr Putin is not in control even in the Kremlin itself.'
But Mr Kasparov is not bothered by the dangers of this game even though critics of the Kremlin have fallen victim to a series of unexplained attacks recently.
He brushed aside concerns for his safety in pursuit of his dream of a more pluralist and democratic Russia even as he moves around with two bodyguards.
'I can calculate the possibilities as a chess player and I have to be honest and say that our chances are not high. But I take this as a moral duty, and when you do something out of moral duty, then who cares?... So I am here, I am fighting and I try to defend our rights. I don't feel that I have the right to be scared.'
http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg:80/news/story/0,4136,119684,00.html
But Mr Kasparov is not bothered by the dangers of this game even though critics of the Kremlin have fallen victim to a series of unexplained attacks recently<<<
He sounds brave in print.
and like a fool.
There was something, not that long ago, think it was that Putin denied him a visa to leave the country, said he was a trouble maker.