Re: [ICANN-EU] politics, domocracy and icann (questions to candidates)

[Vittorio Bertola <vb@vitaminic.net>]

On Thu, 17 Aug 2000 13:38:54 +0200, you wrote:

>Some questions to the candidates. No technical ones, but about democracy and politics.
>
>1) How do you feel about the election and the endorsement-period (only 2 
>self-nominated candidates will make it)?

I think that ICANN underestimated the skills and resources necessary
to build an election of this size and significance. It also seems
clear to me that some inside ICANN and the organizations expressing
its current Board would like the whole At Large thing to fail, leaving
the governance of the DNS completely in their hands.

There is a clear issue here: if this process is meant to select half
of the Board to represent Internet users and balance the other half of
the Board representing registries, ISPs and telcos, why are people
working for registries, ISPs and telcos allowed to candidate? This is
something I don't understand. However, I am confident that, in the
end, At Large members will support independent candidates. To be
honest, I don't think that the five ICANN-named candidates have any
chance to win, despite the huge and unfair advantages that they have
been given.

>2) Should the ICANN be democratic?

Yes, otherwise it will perish. We all know that issues managed by
ICANN are highly political. I can't see why the governments of the
world should leave this stuff in the hands of an industry lobby. If
ICANN will not be satisfactorily democratic and representative of all
parties and countries, I bet that we will see many governments asking
to delegate the matter to some other organization or overriding
ICANN's decisions by national laws (and it would be a disaster). I am
surprised that people in the industry seem not to understand this.
They should fight to get more members and more independent candidates.

>3) Only 5 of 9 directors will elected in this election. When and how should the 4 
>remaining directors be elected?

In year 2001. It is not clear to me whether it's better to have a
world election or to distribute the four seats among regions,
proportionally to the number of members. However, it has to be a
general At Large election, and it has to be managed much more
effectively and democratically than this one. All candidates should go
through the member nomination process, but maybe with some form of
pre-aggregation (i.e. you do not endorse single candidates, but lists
of candidates sharing a program, and then express your own preference
inside the list). I think that we have to experiment and learn from
this election, and struggle to get a better one in year 2001. By the
way, I think that the ones of us who won't get to the ballot but care
about the issue should try to put together a common proposal to be
presented to ICANN.

-- 
.oOo.oOo.oOo.oOo vb.
Vittorio Bertola     <vb@vitaminic.net>    Ph. +39 011 23381220
Vitaminic [The Music Evolution] - Vice President for Technology