[ICANN-EU] Fwd: CYBER-FEDERALIST NO.5: The ICANN Member Nomination Process

["Michael Bracker" <michael.bracker@fitug.de>]

hi icann-europe :)

here is an analysis of all five ICANN-regional parts. Probably quite
interesting, also if not Europ-specific :)

greetings,
Michael


>   ********************************************************
>   CYBER-FEDERALIST       No. 5        September 6, 2000
>             THE ICANN MEMBER NOMINATION PROCESS
>
>           Civil Society Democracy Project (CivSoc)
>                          of
>   Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR)
>                 (CivSoc of CPSR)
>             http://www.civsoc.org
>             http://www.internetdemocracyproject.org/
>             http://www.cyber-federalist.org  (archive)
>   ********************************************************
>
> The Member Nominations phase of the ICANN elections ends this Friday
> (September 8).  With just a few days left, we can begin to see some likely
> nominations and some electoral trends.
>
> The most useful website for following the elections is the ICANNnot site,
> which summarizes each region's election.  That site is located at:
> http://www.ICANNnot.org
> (Many thanks to Mr. Andrew Bloch for creating that site!)
>
> In what follows, I summarize the present state of each regional election
> and speculate about the future.
>
> EUROPE
> ======
> Europe has had the highest turnout of any region, with over 32% of all
> activated members voting (21% of all members in the region.)  Europe also
> has the fewest open positions for member nominations -- only 2 of 7, with
> the other 5 positions already filled by ICANN's nominees.
>
> The two candidates most likely to win a nomination are Andy Mueller-Maguhn
> and Jeanette Hofmann, both from Germany and both with strong credentials
> for representing civil society concerns on the ICANN Board.  The clear
> leader is Mueller-Maguhn, with more than twice the endorsements of any
> other candidate.  Mueller-Maguhn is the Speaker of the Chaos Computer Club
> (www.CCC.de), an organization that promotes issues like privacy and
freedom
> of information.  (My German colleagues have uniformly emphasized that the
> term "chaos" refers to its philosophy of freedom and non-hierarchical
> organization.)
>
> Jeanette Hofmann is a university-based social scientist who has done
> extensive studies of the IETF.  She is a founding member of the European
> chapter of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (www.CPSR.org)
> and a signatory to the Civil Society Statement
> (www.civilsocietyinternetforum.org).
>
> Two other leading European candidates are Lutz Donnerhacke and Dmitri
> Bourkov.  Donnerhacke is a co-founder of FITUG (www.FITUG.de), which is a
> member of the Global Internet Liberty Campaign (www.GILC.org).  With about
> 800 endorsements, he is only about 250 votes behind the Jeanette Hoffman
at
> the time of this writing.  Bourkov, the only non-German candidate with
> large numbers of endorsements, has a background in the technical areas of
> network development in Eastern Europe and Russia.
>
> Election data for Europe is available at:
>     http://www.icannnot.org/icannel.cgi?s=e&r=EU&l=e
> An archived discussion forum for Europe is available at:    http://
> www.fitug.de/icann-europe/index.html
>
>
> ASIA/AUSTRALIA/PACIFIC
> ======================
> The region with the greatest contrast to Europe is Asia.  There, only
about
> 12% of activated members have voted (less than 5% of all Asia regional
> members.)  Asia has three candidate positions still open, but so far only
> one member has passed the 2% threshold for nomination.
>
> The leading candidate is Hong Jie Li from China, who has over 1000 votes.
> He has a business background and expresses concerns about business
> development. Three other candidates each have between 400 and 500 votes.
> Kuo-Wei Wu, from Taiwan, has a background in the technical and research
> community and is active in APNIC.  Jon Ho Kim, from Korea, is an expert in
> intellectual property law.
>
> The fourth candidate is Yukika Matsumoto from Japan.  She is the only
> leading Asian candidate to strongly advocate civil society issues.  She
has
> worked with NGO's, most notably JCA-NET, which is the Japanese member of
> the Association for Progressive Communications (www.APC.org).  At the time
> of this writing she has the third-highest number of votes, but has still
> not passed the 2% threshold needed to win a nomination.
>
> Election data for Asia is available at:
> http://www.icannnot.org/icannel.cgi?s=e&r=AP&l=e
>
> NORTH AMERICA
> =============
> The North American region has three clear leading candidates for its three
> open positions.  All three have strongly supported values of civil
society.
>
> Karl Auerbach was a co-founder of the Boston Working Group, which played
an
> important role in ICANN's creation, ensuring that there would be an At
> Large membership.  His extensive reform platform for ICANN can be seen at:
> http://www.cavebear.com/ialc/platform.htm .  Barbara Simons is the former
> President of the Association for Computing Machinery (www.ACM.org) and
> founded its Internet Governance Project
> (http://www.acm.org/serving/IG.html), which supported the work of Kathy
> Kleiman.  Simons is also a long-time member of CPSR.  Both Auerbach and
> Simons have endorsed the Civil Society Statement (Auerbach contributed
> significantly to its creation.)  The third candidate who has also passed
> the 2% threshold is Emerson Tiller, whose platform supports free speech
and
> open democratic governance of ICANN.
>
> Election data for North America is available at:
> http://www.icannnot.org/icannel.cgi
>
> LATIN AMERICA/CARIBBEAN
> =======================
> In this region one candidate has emerged as a clear leader, although a
> second person may still pass the 2% limit.  With the majority of ICANN
> members located in Brazil, it is not surprising that both candidates are
> from that country.
>
> Claudio Silva Menezes has over 800 votes out of a total of 924 at this
> time.  He works for the Banco do Brasil in IT management. In a distant
> second place is Aluisio Nunes, with 60 votes.  He is an independent
> consultant in strategic management and marketing research.
>
> Election data for Latin America are available at:
> http://www.icannnot.org/icannel.cgi?s=e&r=LA&l=e
>
> AFRICA
> ======
> Although only 54 votes have been cast so far in this region, the rates of
> participation are roughly equivalent to North America.  Here the threshold
> to surpass is the fixed limit of 20 voters.  Two of the three candidates
> are still far below that, with 8 and 6 votes.
>
> The leading candidate here is Calvin Browne of South Africa.  He is a
> director of the corporation managing the .co.za domain name space, which
is
> the South African equivalent of .com.  He also has years of experience
> participating in activities of ICANN and the Internet Society.
>
> Election data for Africa is available at:
> http://www.icannnot.org/icannel.cgi?s=e&r=AF&l=e
>
>
> COMMENTARY
> ==========
> These data allow one to speculate on what the future holds.
>
> Clearly nationalism is a strong factor in these regional elections.  In
> each region, the leading candidates are citizens of the countries with the
> most voters.  The big countries are Brazil, Germany, United States, South
> Africa, and China and Japan.
>
> In two regions -- Europe and North America -- voters have shown a clear
> preference for candidates expressing concerns for free speech, privacy,
and
> democracy (what I here call "civil society values.")  Every single
> successful candidate in Europe and North America has advocated civil
> society values.
>
> For the final elections in North America, where Lawrence Lessig is also a
> candidate, fully 4 of the 7 Board candidates in October will likely be
> explicit supporters of such values. (This multiplicity of candidates does
> not risk splitting the vote and causing them all to lose, because the
> election rules will allow for the aggregation of votes.)
>
> In Europe, only 2 of the 7 likely candidates in October seem to have a
> strong background in civil society issues.  However, they are both from
> Germany, the country likely to exercise the greatest influence on
outcomes.
>  Thus, 2 of the 3 final German candidates will almost certainly be strong
> supporters of such values.
>
> In Asia, there is still some chance that one civil society candidate may
> make it on the ballot -- Yukika Matsumoto.  Otherwise, that region's
> electoral choices in October will largely be among candidates from the
> industry and technology communities.
>
> In Africa and Latin America, the candidates with the clearest civil
society
> orientation will be those nominated by ICANN.  Both of ICANN's African
> nominees endorsed the Civil Society Statement (see:
> http://www.cpsr.org/internetdemocracy/friends-of-civsoc.html ).  One of
> ICANN's Latin American nominees, Raul Echeberria, also endorsed the
> Statement and was the recipient of an endorsement from the Association for
> Progressive Communications (www.APC.org).
>
> Between now and Friday's election deadline, a few questions remain.  The
> biggest question is whether Asia voters will nominate Yukika Matsumoto,
the
> only advocate of privacy, speech, and the public interest who has a chance
> to get on the ballot.  In Europe, Jeanette Hoffman could still lose her
> position to Lutz Donnerhacke, although support for Hoffman seems to be
> increasing as the deadline approaches.
>
> The election rules do allow members to switch endorsements.  Yukika
> Matsumoto could still benefit from a last-minute wave of switched
> endorsements, particularly of other candidates with no prospect of success
> declare their support for her.  That may allow her to pass the 2%
threshold.
>
> In October the big question will be whether voter behavior in this phase
> will be repeated in the October election.  Today's voter behavior has been
> characterized by considerable support for candidates supporting civil
> society values.  If the October elections look like the Member Nomination
> phase, then new Directors may be elected who will supplement ICANN's
> current concern with property rights with a concern for speech, privacy,
> and consumer rights.
>
> The Civil Society Statement is available at:
> http://www.CivilSocietyInternetForum.org/
>
> ###
>
> Candidates and readers are welcome to comment on this analysis.  Comments
> on the previous Cyber-Federalist, No.4, have been offered by:  Vint Cerf,
> Christoph Weber-Fahr, Carl Malamud, Hans Klein, and David Reed.  See:
> http://www.cyber-federalist.org
>
> =========================================================
> CYBER-FEDERALIST is a regularly-published series of analyses and
> commentaries on Internet governance and ICANN elections. It is produced as
> part of the Internet Democracy Project. See:    http://www.civsoc.org
>     http://www.internetdemocracyproject.org/
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