* The Frontrunner is Already under Ukrainian Sanctions
By Sola Oke
On 26 September, roughly two hundred national federations will elect the next president of FIDE at the General Assembly in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Each federation casts one vote. Fifty-one of Africa’s 54 countries are members, one of the most complete continental footprints in international sport.
That arithmetic alone would make the continent important. The electoral rules make it decisive.
Africa is a gate, not a constituency
Under FIDE’s rules a presidential candidate cannot simply gather votes on the day. He must file a complete ticket, including a nominee for deputy president, and secure endorsements from between five and eight member federations — and those endorsements must span all four continental regions: Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe.
No candidate reaches the ballot without African federations actively signing his papers. In a one-federation-one-vote assembly, the continent’s bloc is also among the largest and most cohesive in world chess. For the first time, three candidates need Africa simultaneously and there is no incumbent to defer to.
The candidates have noticed. In July the African Continental Stage of the FIDE–ISCF World Schools Team Championship was staged in Cape Town and Stellenbosch, drawing federations, education officials and chess administrators from South Africa, Eswatini and Namibia to work on teacher training and school leagues. It was run by the International School Chess Federation, whose president is Timur Turlov — the man now most likely to win in Samarkand.
The frontrunner, and what he brings
Turlov, 38, is the Moscow-born, Kazakh-naturalised founder and chief executive of Freedom Holding Corp., a Nasdaq-listed financial services and technology group that reported record revenue of $2.19 billion for the year ended 31 March 2026, net income of $153.3 million and a market capitalisation above $8 billion. Forbes has estimated his personal fortune at around $5.5 billion. He has led the Kazakhstan Chess Federation since January 2023 and the ISCF, which he proposed and FIDE’s General Assembly approved, since September 2024.
His spending is the largest in the game. Freedom says it puts more than $15 million a year into chess and has invested $75 million over three years. It is a FIDE global partner alongside Alphabet, funded the 2024 World Rapid and Blitz Championships in New York and the Candidates tournaments, and this year acquired ChessBase, the German chess software company. He has spoken of Freedom’s existing commercial presence in South Africa and of building what he calls sustainable chess ecosystems on the continent.
No rival brings anything comparable. That is precisely why the rest of his file matters to the federations being asked to sign.
How he became the frontrunner
Turlov did not set out to run for president. In late June he was announced as running mate to the incumbent, Arkady Dvorkovich, seeking a third term. On 23 July the European Union added Dvorkovich to its 21st sanctions package, citing his years as a Russian deputy prime minister and his use of the federation’s highest office to lend legitimacy to Moscow’s war aims. Dvorkovich suspended his powers within hours, calling the listing unlawful and unfair; he is challenging it and no court has ruled.
Within a day the ticket reconstituted itself with the top two names exchanged. Turlov moved up to president, and Viswanathan Anand — the five-time world champion who had become interim president under the charter — became his deputy candidate. Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who ran FIDE for 23 years and had the Russian federation’s endorsement, never filed before the deadline. Three tickets are on the ballot: Turlov and Anand; Jan Henric Buettner with Malcolm Pein; and Wadim Rosenstein with Gordon Tang.
The Ukrainian designation
In October 2022, by presidential decree, Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council sanctioned Turlov personally alongside Freedom Finance Ukraine. The securities regulator suspended the subsidiary’s licences the following month. Because the measures apply to a financial firm, client assets were frozen with the company’s: 12,800 securities accounts holding about ₴3.5 billion, roughly $95 million at the time. The designation was imposed for five years and remains in force.
Freedom Holding calls the listing an error. It points to the sale of its two Russian subsidiaries after the invasion, to Turlov’s renunciation of his Russian and St Kitts and Nevis citizenships in 2022, and to millions of dollars it says the company and its management contributed to Ukrainian humanitarian causes. Ukraine has not accepted the argument, and the company has contested the measure for nearly four years without success. Ukraine’s use of NSDC designations has itself been criticised by Ukrainian human rights organisations as opaque — a point Turlov’s campaign is entitled to make.
The American file
Freedom Holding’s own financial statements disclose that in March 2026 the US Securities and Exchange Commission issued a Wells Notice to the company, its main shareholder and Turlov personally as chief executive — the formal signal that enforcement staff are considering civil proceedings, and the last step before a decision on whether to sue. The company recorded its disagreement and filed a response.
Turlov’s public account is unbothered. He has described the notice as closer to an inspection report than an indictment, noted that more than 450 companies received one last year, attributed the SEC’s questions to transaction internalisation that Deloitte separately reviewed, and framed a resolution as the event that would open US and EU licences to his group.
The investigation followed an August 2023 report by short-seller Hindenburg Research, which disclosed a short position and alleged sanctions circumvention, signs of fabricated revenue and commingling of client funds. US authorities opened examinations that autumn. Freedom and Turlov denied the allegations, and the company said in January 2024 that an outside review found no evidence supporting the main claims.
A third matter is live in Russia: a Nizhny Novgorod arbitration court froze €18.95 million and $2.05 million of Turlov’s assets in March 2024 over a state Deposit Insurance Agency claim concerning a bank that collapsed in 2019, a freeze upheld on appeal and cassation. Turlov says he learned of the claim from the press, was never involved in any transaction with the bank and was never affiliated with it.
None of this is a finding of guilt. A designation is an administrative act, a Wells Notice a preliminary staff position, an asset freeze a securing measure. No court has ruled against Turlov in any of these proceedings, he denies wrongdoing throughout, and no government has publicly indicated it is weighing sanctions against him.
The continuity question
Turlov is not Russia’s candidate, and the record is unambiguous. The Chess Federation of Russia endorsed Ilyumzhinov, not Turlov. When Ilyumzhinov failed to file, that endorsement transferred to no one. The CFR is itself currently suspended. Turlov holds a Kazakh passport and has never held office in the Russian state.
What he is, unambiguously, is the continuity candidate. He was Dvorkovich’s chosen deputy, and the ticket that filed in July is substantially the same machine with the top two names swapped. The backers and most likely the vice-presidential slate are Dvorkovich’s. What changed was the letterhead.
That matters because of how the ticket has voted. At the 2024 General Assembly Turlov supported a Kyrgyz motion calling for restrictions on Russian teams to be lifted. It was defeated amid international objection, though similar proposals passed the following year. The same reporting notes that despite the change of passport, Turlov is regarded with suspicion by many of Dvorkovich’s critics.
None of that makes him anyone’s proxy. It does mean African federations are being asked to endorse the deputy of a president the EU has just sanctioned, on that president’s ticket, with a voting record on the Russia question already in evidence. The fair question is not where his loyalties lie. It is what, concretely, would be different under a Turlov presidency that was not different under Dvorkovich’s.
Why the risk is operational, not moral
FIDE has now lost two presidents to sanctions regimes in a decade — Ilyumzhinov after his 2015 US designation, Dvorkovich last month. Both times the mechanism was identical and had nothing to do with disgrace: a federation registered in Switzerland cannot function when its president cannot hold bank accounts, sign contracts, obtain insurance or travel reliably.
Both times FIDE improvised, falling back on a charter clause about deputies that was never drafted as a sanctions contingency. For African federations the exposure is concrete. When the machinery seizes, it is development budgets and smaller hosting contracts that get cut first, not marquee events.
What Africa can extract
The continent arrives in Samarkand with leverage it has never held. FIDE approved a rotation principle in April giving Africa priority to host the 2032 Olympiad; Nigeria hosts the World Amateur Rapid and Blitz Championships this month; and the ISCF has launched a Chess in Education grant programme that African federations are positioned to draw on.
The useful thing to secure with that leverage is not a promise but a provision, and it should be demanded of all three tickets rather than one:
Hosting guarantees in writing — the 2032 rotation principle converted into a binding commitment that survives a change of president.
Development funding ring-fenced against a change of leadership, so national programmes do not depend on one man’s legal position holding.
A published continuity mechanism — automatic transfer of banking and signature authority, a fixed timetable for an extraordinary assembly, and protection for hosting contracts already signed.
Board seats and a permanent voice in how the game is governed, rather than a development budget line reviewed at the winner’s discretion.
Twice in ten years, FIDE has discovered it had no such mechanism. African federations are, this September, among the few parties with the standing to insist it acquires one.
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