Re-elected Chess Kenya President Wanjala promises bright future for players

Chess Kenya President Benard Wanjala.[Courtesy]

Benard Wanjala was overwhelmingly re-elected as the President of Chess Kenya during General meeting held on Sunday.

A total of 125 delegates from all parts of the country voted where Wanjala team garnered 109 voted to defend his seat and final term.

Wanjala won by a landslide as his competitor Judith Kiragu got a pastry 13 votes. There were 3 spoiled votes.

In his victory remarks, Wanjala promised to unite chess players and continue growing chess sport in the country.

"I want Judy and I to join hands to grow the sport, campaign is over. We hand very mature issue based campaign. It's time now to concentrate to what's is important to chess," said Wanjala who will run Chess Kenya for four years until 2026 after the win.

This election was to be held last year and had to be pushed forward to allow federation to comply with sports act.

In a letter dated December 8,2018, registrar wrote to Chess Kenya among the demands to align the federation constitution to be compliant and form branches countrywide.

Chess Kenya convened a stakeholders meeting in February 13 last year that appointed a five-member committee to review the constitution.

However, the matter took a different turn when some members petitioned to Sports and Dispute Tribunal (SDT) citing delay of election.

In their ruling in July 8th,2021, SDT threw out the petition but gave the incumbent six months to comply with registrar demand and hold election culminating to just concluded election.

Speaking to Standard Sports on Monday, Wanjala said he wants to leave a legacy by completing the vision he had for the sport when he first assumed office.

Wanjala said one of his goals is to invest more on high level training of promising juniors towards International Masters status and introduce under 25 and under 20 categories championships to cater for university students.

"My goal is to leave a legacy that I will look back on and be proud of. I want to transform chess in Kenya and touch many lives of chess stakeholders,” he said.

Wanjala’s other key agendas include introduce over 50 senior championships to retain experienced players in the chess scenes, increase prize distribution to a minimum of 10 in all national tournaments and invest more in equipment’s (chess clocks and DGT boards for live transmissions among others.

Other members of Wanjala's team who were re-elected include Andrew Owili (vice president), Gilbert Wandera (treasurer), John Mukabi (secretary-general), Rodah Etole (gender and special interest secretary), Ivini Magoica (national branch secretary), Terence Chazima (deputy treasurer) and Aurelia Chumo (deputy secretary general).