Dirty tricks! FIA hopefuls Jean Todt and Ari Vatenen locked in bitter battle to succeed Max Mosley as president

The battle to find a successor to Max Mosley, the FIA’s retiring president, has
been rocked by allegations of intimidation.
Jean Todt, the former Ferrari team chief who is Mosley’s favoured candidate to succeed him in the office he has held for 16 years, is being challenged by Ari
Vatanen, the Finnish former world rally champion who also served as an MEP for
10 years.

With the election due to take place on Friday, the ugliness of the fight for every vote in what has become an unexpectedly close contest surfaced last night with accusations of intimidation by one of Todt’s main supporters.


Jack Wavamunno, founder president of the Federation of Motor Sports Clubs in
Uganda, claimed that Surinder Thatthi, who is on the Todt ticket to become Sport Vice-President of the FIA, made ‘veiled threats’ to him in telephone calls on the day after nominations for the election were announced.

Wavamunno, who is standing against incumbent Thatthi for election as Africa’s representative to the FIA’s powerful World Motor Sport Council, claimed that
his rival rang him twice on August 29. In the first call, Wavamunno alleges that he was told that standing against Thatthi and supporting Vatanen against Todt would not be in the interests of himself or the FMU.
In the second call, he claims Thatthi told him a sponsor had been found to pay the euro2,820 outstanding from the FMU’s subscription to the FIA. Wavamunno said: ‘Surinder Thatthi said it would not be in the interests of me, or the FMU, if I stood against him for the WMSC and the FMU did not vote for Jean Todt. I felt it was a veiled threat. ‘In the second call, he said he was aware there was money outstanding from the FMU’s subscription to the FIA and he had a sponsor who could pay that, but only
on the condition that I withdrew my candidacy and we gave our vote to his
candidate, Todt.

‘I told him the Federation was making arrangements to pay the money and did not
need to sell that vote.’

Thatthi denies the allegations. He says he has not spoken to anyone at the FMU since early August and certainly not since the nominations were announced.

He adds that he was aware of the outstanding money but did not make any offer to
help get it paid off. But former FMU president David Bitalo and current president George Kagimu say they also had conversations with Thatthi on August 29 which included the offer to have the outstanding money paid.
Telephone records seen by The Mail on Sunday show two calls in 33 minutes were made from Thatthi’s mobile telephone to Wavamunno and one call to Bitalo on August
29, and a further call was made to Wavamunno on September 11.
Sir Jackie Stewart, who has continuously opposed Mosley’s stance in defiance of calls for a change of governance in Formula One, called for an independent investigation ahead of the election on Friday.

Stewart said: ‘These allegations should be investigated by the FIA. There is concern about the integrity of the election. There’s a fear that if you currently have a world championship rally, or a Formula One world championship date, be careful who you vote for or you might lose it.’

Mosley’s successor will be decided by the 221 motoring and sporting organisations from 132 countries who make up the FIA General Assembly. The Vatanen camp are concerned over whose votes will be discarded because of outstanding subscriptions to the FIA, and Vatanen himself has raised questions over the legitimacy of Mosley’s public support for Todt, who is also backed by Formula One rights holder Bernie Ecclestone.
Vatanen claims that as the FIA are based in Paris they are subject to French laws governing the conduct of non-profit making organisations. These include a requirement for impartiality in elections.



Vatanen said yesterday: ‘The vote has to be seen as fair. The rules of democracy are
universal and voting law in France is very strict.’

His comments will be seen in the Todt camp as the latest shots in what has become a bitter battle. Vatanen has accused Todt of using FIA funds to campaign around the
world by private jet with his partner, former Bond actress Michelle Yeoh.
Todt refutes the charges, claiming Ms Yeoh is a Global Road Safety Ambassador for the FIA. And they travelled, he said, by commercial airlines. Vatanen’s public support
from Prince Faisal, a member of Jordan’s Royal family, brought a waspish response from Mosley. The FIA president wrote to the Prince: ‘It is very unfortunate, but the
campaign run by Ari Vatanen has been marked by untruthful claims (such as
the false allegation that the FIA provided a private jet to take Jean Todt to Africa) and
has now descended to insults such as his recent statements that the FIA is a “stagnant pool” which stinks and the entire FIA system is unfair, autocratic and unjust.’
Mosley added: ‘Any thought that, after the election, everyone can unite and work together can now be forgotten. The simple fact is Vatanen will lose the election and lose badly.’

The leaked correspondence was interpreted by the Vatanen camp as showing that the Todt campaign felt under threat from the 57-year-old Finn. But Todt, a 63-year-old Frenchman, is accustomed to political intrigue after his years of defending Ferrari in Formula One’s political in-fighting.

While the F1 teams do not have a vote in the election, their support is almost unanimously in favour of Vatanen. And he has promised to deliver a newstyle of leadership, devoid of the old allegiances and independent of past grievances.

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