Chess champ's presidential bid is no gambit

Last update: September 30, 2007 - 8:11 PM

Garry Kasparov played some fierce matches in his 20 years atop the world of chess, but none as intense as the one he is playing now against Russian President Vladimir Putin. The former world chess champion entered Russia's presidential race on Sunday, elected overwhelmingly as the candidate for the country's beleaguered opposition coalition, which has united liberals, leftists and nationalists against Putin.

HIS CHANCES

Even Kasparov's place on the March ballot is not assured. His candidacy still needs to be registered and is likely to be blocked because the coalition, Other Russia, is not a registered political party.

If he does get to run, Kasparov would not be expected to pose a major challenge to whichever candidate wins Putin's backing -- speculated to be newly anointed Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov, who leapfrogged over two officials long groomed for the presidency: Sergei Ivanov and Dmitry Medvedev. (Putin is prohibited from running for reelection.) Also, though Kasparov is famous internationally, he is seldom seen on Russian media, while Putin, by contrast, continues to enjoy stratospheric approval ratings.

HIS STRATEGY

The key to chess, Kasparov said recently, as in all leadership, is to be objective about your strengths and weaknesses and use the knowledge to adapt. That is something he doesn't expect Putin, a martial-arts practitioner, to understand. "What can you expect from a judo fighter?" he said.

HIS RISKS

Kasparov is mindful of what has happened to Putin critics: Journalist Anna Politkovskaya was shot and killed at her Moscow apartment last fall, and former KGB officer Alexander Litvinenko was fatally poisoned with a radioactive substance in London in November. He keeps a squad of bodyguards at home in Moscow and never touches the food when he flies the Russian state airline, Aeroflot. "No one is safe in Putin's Russia," he has said.

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