Jaime Sunye Neto

Who is Jaime Sunye Neto?

Jaime Sunye Neto is a Brazilian chess grandmaster.

Awarded the IM title in 1980 and the GM title in 1986 he was Brazilian Champion six times, in 1976, 1977, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982 and 1983.

He played in his first Interzonal in 1979, finishing fifth overall. He was joint second place at Havana 1985 and first at Zenica 1986 and won the South-American Zonal in 1989. From 1978 to 1986 he was a mainstay on the Brazilian Chess Olympiad team, and was President of the Brazilian Chess Federation from 1988 to 1992.

In 1996, Neto ran for President of FIDE. He assembled a powerful team and won the support of almost all of the chess playing countries of Europe. However the whole congress and the election took place under very suspicious circumstances, including one employee of FIDE, Ignatius Leong from Singapore, who was holding a number of proxies, feeling threatened and asking for protection by the American Embassy. He signed the proxies under obvious pressure in favour of the current president.