Θέμις (Themis)

In the end, Arkady Vladimirovich Dvorkovich was acquitted for insufficiency of evidence in yesterday’s hearing of FIDE Ethics Commission, while instead the President of the Serbian Chess Federation, Dušan Cogoljević, was actually found guilty of “a violation of art. 2.1 of the Code of Ethics (offer and acceptance of consideration with a view of influencing election into FIDE office)”. That means — and implies — that Cogoljević and the Serbian Federation are suspended for six months from “any participation in FIDE meetings, in particular, the General Assembly meeting and Presidential elections”. Quite curiously, first Makropolous and then Dvorkovich have ended up losing one vote in Serbia. The judicial details are well summed up by Macauley Peterson in his ChessBase article “Serbian delegate suspended after he ‘sold his vote to himself’”, and there is little to add to his account. The struggle for eternal life continues to be a three-horse race between Arkady Vladimirovich Dvorkovich, Georgios Makropoulos, and Nigel David Short, and, of course, until October 3, anything and everything can still happen.