Re: [ALSC-Forum] Self-regulation and ICANN

[Mikael Pawlo]

On Tue, 17 Jul 2001, Mikael Pawlo wrote:
(---)
> I prefer an indirect participation and I want to see it done through the
> usual governmental elections. To make the system more flexible, each
> government could choose to either elect a person within the government or
> make a national vote of who to appoint. Considering the lack of
> participation in the national elections to the European Parliamant, I do
> think that more elections probably isn't going to work in practice, thus
> forcing the governmental appointment solution.

I should add to this that the Region 4 director of ICANN, Nii Quaynor
representing Africa, was elected with 67 votes out of 130 total valid
votes. Africa is the world's second largest continent with a total 
population of 755 million.

I do not know how ICANN and the At Large Membership Study Committe feel   
about this - we do not get any clues from their Discussion Paper #1 -  but
I am utterly disturbed by this result.

You can not force people to participate, it is a democratic right not to
participate in elections, but in my opinon the solution I suggest would
inevitably lead to a better result in terms of accountability and
representativity than the Nii Quaynor-situation.

Regards

Mikael
P.S. Just to make sure no one misunderstands this - I have nothing against
Nii Quaynor. I do not know him and I do not know all circumstances
regarding the election. Please do not read this message as a hint of foul
play or anything like that, I am only addressing issue of membership
structure. D.S.

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