My comments in the mail in green below. Best regards Col R S Perhar From:
apnic-talk-bounces at lists dot apnic dot net [mailto:apnic-talk-bounces at lists dot apnic dot net] On
Behalf Of Matthew Moyle-Croft On 11/03/2010, at 1:58 AM, Naresh Ajwani wrote:
Dear Mathew, I agree with your suggestions and shall be the responsibility of
the independent electoral body constituted at the time of announcement of
election. Please don't twist my words. Where's your actual proposal for "an independent
electoral body"? You seem to have assumed acceptance where there is
none. Certainly not from me. This is APNIC, not a country. The costs and
complexity don't appear to give a useful outcome. The issue here is why did a doubt come on the present system.
The threads that I am picking up seems that there was a issue related to independence
of the scrutinizer. Why is this independence required? If costs are a concern ,
which is understandable then let the scrutinizers be nominated as being done
presently but allow the candidates themselves or their representative be
present as observers to the process of counting and declaration of results.
Where is the harm? Makes the process transparent and also at no extra
cost?
As before I think the current resource based arrangement is
fine. Changing to member based in the face of IPv4 exhaustion seems to
be a way of stacking the vote by encouraging people to join for no other reason
than voting. I can understand that at a particular time, when APNIC took off,
the system of voting was decided to be proportional representation to the
resources used. A wise decision which may have stood the requirements to date.
However if we look at the spread of internet, its importance to the
global community having increased critically, a change is taking place.
Organisations like ITU are now wanting to get into it. So in these changing
circumstances to have a relook at the constitution of our organization which
better reflects these changed circumstances and challenges is no harm in fact
good will come out by making the org more robust. Lets debate on the proposal
of Naresh in that context. It may find favour of the community or not is yet to
be seen. Naresh to coming out with detailed reasoning is justified.
2. Specified terms I don't see the motivation. Especially when there
doesn't appear to be a problem at the moment.. Fixed terms have the
problem that they remove often good people for an arbitrary reason. Motivation arises from a need, an incident,an experience,
ambition etc. Nothing wrong in that. When two countries are in a diplomatic
tiff or even war both think that they are right. It is perception of each.This
is true for any two parties. However evenhanded maturity lies in taking a
balanced view( very difficult). You are right to say that fixed terms remove
good people at times. However the reason is not arbitrary because fixed terms
are laid in advance and everyone is aware. In fact fixed terms put pressure on
people to perform and accomplish their agendas in a time bound manner. Fixed
terms also allow for newer talent to come in and making the system more dynamic
to changing circumstances. The fixed terms can be of a length where they are
long enough to allow any reasonable person to pick up knowledge, make their
contribution and move on. Say two terms or even stretch to three terms. Again, given that you and others are unhappy about the
outcome of a just performed election where your candidate didn't get elected
I feel that your motivation for changing the system immediately after is
suspect. I would suggest that you concentrate on not "changing the
system" but actually focusing on electing a candidate next time.
Ensuring your proxies are in and that your candidate is well known.
Just having them well known in India is not a reason for others to vote
for them. This is a multinational organisation that requires more from
the candidates The capabilities and abilities of any candidate standing for
elections and wanting to be elected have to be know within the community,
agreed. Efforts to get the candidate elected have to be taken and should be
taken in right earnest. No issue on that. However I feel there is no harm in carrying out a reality
check to see that the system is fair, allows for transparency in functioning.
In the instant case I find that there was some issue relating to finding
information relating to the election process and results on one end and efforts
made to deny the information. What was the information that was being seeked
and why denied? Is there any thing in the election process which requires
secrecy. If yes, why? Why are the results with complete voting patterns not
made available to the community. Any particular reason for hiding these details
from the community. Will the community be better off with the information or worse
off. I find no reason for being worse off?? I am a firm believer that when ever
there is secrecy there is more harm than good. I suggest that the whole process
of elections should be fully transparent. A number of people who got elected for instance are people
that I've met, talked to and corresponded with - all from different countries
from my own. Great. I'm also disappointed that you have, despite demanding
change, actually offered no concrete changes other than one line suggestions. Yes I also feel that a concrete proposal needs to drafted.
Probably it is the beginning. All of this I've said before but we're still going in
circles. Regards, Matthew (Speaking for himself)
Regards and best wishes Naresh Ajwani
|