Entertainment

It’s party time

The wacky president of the world chess federation, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, wants to create an international political party to promote the game.

The “Chess Party” would run candidates for office around the world and attract supporters across ideological lines, he told the Russian paper Izvestia this week.

“One of the first steps of the new movement will be to organize a chess tournament between North and South Korea,” he said. “Then a similar tournament of children from Palestine and Israel.”

“Chess Party” is getting mixed reviews.

Vladimir Zhirinovsky, leader of Russia’s biggest ultra-nationalist party, said he could ally with the “Chess Party.” But Zhirinovsky is known for his strange views, like wanting Russia to invade Alaska.

Ilyumzhinov, a millionaire businessman and former president of the Russian state of Kalmykia, has made bizarre claims in the past, such as when he described howhe was abducted by space aliens and taken on a ride in a UFO.

Former world champion Anatoly Karpov, a member of the Russian parliament from Vladimir Putin’s party, cast doubt on the new party. “Chess, like other kinds of sport, has always been outside politics,” he said.