The former world champion Anatoly Karpov announced on Saturday that he was running for president of the World Chess Federation.

Karpov is trying to unseat Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, who has been president of the federation (known as FIDE, its initials in French), since 1995. Ilyumzhinov is also the president of Kalmykia, a small Russian republic on the Caspian Sea.

The federation president is elected for a five-year term, and there is no limit on how many times he (or she) can be re-elected.

Karpov would not be the first ex-champion to serve as FIDE’s president. Max Euwe, the fifth world champion (1935-37), led the federation from 1970-78, a period of exceptional turmoil and interest in the game.

Karpov was a favorite of the Kremlin during his decade as champion from 1975 to 1985 — which endlessly rankled his successor, Garry Kasparov. Though Karpov publicly protested the suspension of his 1984-85 title match against Kasparov by Florencio Campomanes, Ilyumzhinov’s predecessor, Kasparov charged — and many believed — that it was done at the behest of the Kremlin, which was worried that Karpov was on the verge of collapse and would lose the title. The suspension only put off the inevitable, and Kasparov went on to win the championship later in 1985.

Ilyumzhinov was elected president in 1995. His tenure has been marked by controversies and complaints, partly because the federation has continually changed the manner in which a world champion is selected. That was one of the problems that Karpov cited in announcing his candidacy.

Karpov will certainly win wide support because of his notoriety, but it will be difficult to defeat Ilyumzhinov. In 2005, Bessel Kok, a former chief executive of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, an electronic clearinghouse for banks, ran unsuccessfully against Ilyumzhinov. Though Kok had excellent credentials and is, like Ilyumzhinov, well off financially, he lost because Ilyumzhinov cultivated the support of many of the world’s smaller chess countries. The federation runs on a one-nation, one vote system, so winning the support of Ghana is as important as earning backing from the United States. In this respect, Ilyumzhinov, who is liberal with his money and his favors, is a formidable opponent.