Somali Chess

Somalia-chess-election
African Press Agency

Somali chess federation holds congress, re-elects pressident

APA-Mogadishu (Somalia) The 6th congress of the Somali Chess Federation has been concluded at The Nasa-Hablod Palace hotel in Mogadishu late on Friday with Dr. Ahmed Abdi Hassan Wataac being re-elected to lead the federation until 2012.

After his re-election President Wataac, who talked to reporters vowed to spread chess which is now only confined to Mogadishu and major cities of Somalia.

Last year the Somali Chess Federation succeeded to include chess-related lessons to schools and children at 50 primary, intermediate and secondary schools in Mogadishu have been taking chess lessons.

The president said that the federation is scheduled to start such chess programme in schools in 14 regions before the end of the year so that the ambition of spreading chess throughout Somalia can be achieved.

The Somali Sports Minister Suleyman Olad Roble who witnessed the election described it as free and fair and called on other sporting federations to hold their elections in such transparent manner.

“We know that the mandate of most Somali sporting federations ended but we want to see like what we have witnessed here today” the minister added.

The President of the Somali Olympic Committee Aden Hajji Yabarow (Wiish) also praised the federation identifying it as a fast-growing federation with hard-working leadership.

“This is one of the youngest sporting federations in Somalia, but it is competing with some of the oldest federations and that is because of the activeness of its president Dr. Wataac who is committed to developing his federation,” Wiish said during his address at the end of the congress of the Somali Chess Federation.

Affiliated to the World Chess Federation in 2002 and the Arab Chess Federation in 2003, the Somali Chess Federation is one of Somalia’s most active sports federations and the first to commence a school development programme in the war-ravaged Horn of African nation which has been under-going bloody armed confrontations since 1991.

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