Convergencia Research, Consultoría especializada en Latinoamérica y Caribe
Friday, September 23, 2022

The PP-22 to elect new ITU leaders begins

Next Monday will begin the Plenipotentiary Conference to elect new leaders of the ITU for the period 2023-2027. A representative of the United States, Doreen Bogdan-Martin, and a Russian, Rashid Ismailov, will compete for the position of Secretary General, in a competition marked by geopolitical fights. The directors of the three ITU bureaus - Development, Standardization and Radiocommunications - will also be elected.

The Plenipotentiary Conference, PP 22, the main governing body of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), will begin this Monday, October 26. The meeting will be held in Bucharest, Romania, and will last until October 14. The next plenipotentiary conference will be held in 2026.

At PP 22, the ITU roadmap for the period 2024-2027 will be established. It will be attended by the official representatives of the 193 Member States, who will vote on the strategic plan for the next four years and elect the new ITU management team: the secretary general, the deputy secretary general and the directors of the three bureaus: Radiocommunication (ITU-R), Standardization (ITU-T) and Development (ITU-D).

The 12 members of the Radio Regulations Board and the 48 members of the Council, ITU's governing body between Plenipotentiary Conferences, will also be elected. The new council will meet in Bucharest on October 14, 2023.

ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao said that PP-22 will lay the groundwork for the Union's future operational priorities and activities. It will also address key issues, from connectivity, digital literacy and bridging the digital divide to gender mainstreaming and combating climate change. A roadmap will be set for 2024-2027, "at a time when digital transformation is accelerating worldwide."

If the strategic goals for 2030 are universal connectivity and sustainable digital transformation, by 2027 the aim is to achieve spectrum utilization for space and terrestrial services, the use of international telecommunications numbering resources and the expansion of infrastructure and services.

All eyes are on the election of the ITU Secretary General, where an American and a Russian are facing each other. On one side is Doreen Bogdan-Martin, the incumbent ITU-D director, who has been with ITU for 30 years. On the other is Rashid Ismailov, a technician who worked at Ericsson, Huawei and Nokia (he became their top manager in Russia) and was a civil servant at different stages until reaching the position of deputy minister of telecommunications in his country.

A statement issued today by the U.S. State Department said that "one of the priorities of the U.S. delegation to PP-22 is to stress to ITU Member States the strong support of the United States for the candidacy of Doreen Bogdan-Martin. Ms. Bogdan-Martin is uniquely qualified for this important position and would bring to the post of Secretary General an unmatched record of inclusive and transformative leadership in bridging the digital divide to connect the 2.7 billion people around the world who do not have access to the Internet."

It is clear to no one that the dispute is intersected by the geopolitical tensions that exist between the U.S. and Western European countries with Russia and China, fueled by the war in Ukraine. The electoral campaign in favor of Bogdan-Martin has revolved around the idea that in this election the question of sustaining "freedom" on the Internet in the face of "authoritarian" governments is at stake.

Once the dispute between Bogdan-Martin and Ismailov is settled, the contest for the Deputy Secretary General is next. There are three contenders: Tomas Lamanauskas of Lithuania; Chaesub Lee of South Korea; and Gisa Fuatai Purcell of Samoa. Lamanauskas has the edge, as published by the Center for European Policy Analysis (Cepa), a think tank supported by big business on both sides of the Atlantic and backed by the U.S. State Department. Cepa is one of the mainstays of the Bogdan-Martin campaign and those with whom alliances have been forged.

Bureaus. The dispute for the bureaus is dissimilar. While in some there are several candidates, in others there will be no competition.

The most tightly contested is that of Development (ITU-D), with six candidates. The leading candidate is Stephen Bereaux of the Bahamas, currently Deputy Director and head of ITU-D's Field Operations Coordination Department since March 2020.

Also running is Muhammadou M. O. Kah of The Gambia, an academic who since 2020 has served as ambassador to the Swiss Confederation and at the Permanent Mission of The Gambia to the UN Office, the World Trade Organization (WTO) and other international organizations in the Swiss Confederation.

Anusha Rahman Khan, from Pakistan, was Commonwealth Telecommunications Organization regional advisor for East and South Asia in 2018, and federal minister for information technology and telecommunications in Pakistan for five years.

Jean Philémon Kissangou, from the Republic of Congo, served as a civil servant in his country and has been associated with ITU-D since 2012, as well as having dabbled in private business.

Alexander Ntoko, from Cameroon, has been head of the ITU-T Operations and Planning Department for 10 years. Cosmas Zavazava, from Zimbabwe, has 22 years of experience in ITU-D, the last 12 of which he held the position of Department Director.

In the Bureau of Standardization -ITU-T-, there are three candidates. On one side is Seizo Onoe, from Japan, who after a long career at NTT Docomo currently serves as the head of Standardization Strategy of that operator. Also running is Germany's Thomas M. Zielke, who currently serves as director of the Office for National and International Standardization Policy and Patent Policy at the German Ministry of Economics and Energy. The third is Bilel Jamoussi of Tunisia, who is currently head of ITU-T's own Study Group Department. Jamoussi has won the endorsement of the Arab League and the African Union, although it is unclear whether this will translate into concrete votes from their member nations.

Lastly, there is only one candidate for ITU-R, Mario Maniewicz, from Uruguay, who is the current ITU-R chairman. But that could change, as candidates for all positions have until August 31 to apply.

Other candidates. PP22 will also elect the 12 members of the Radio Regulatory Bureau (RRB), which divides its seats by regions. The Americas has two seats and there are three candidates: Chantal Beaumier, from Canada, an expert in spectrum management with a long career at the Inter-American Telecommunications Commission (Citel), an entity of the Organization of American States (OAS); Javier Juárez Mojica, from Mexico, a member of the board of the regulator Federal Telecommunications Institute since 2016; and Agostinho Linhares de Souza Filho, from Brazil, Spectrum and Orbit advisor at the Office of International Affairs of the regulator Anatel.

Three candidates are contesting for two European seats; five candidates are fighting for two seats corresponding to Eastern Europe and North Asia; four candidates are fighting for three African seats and five are fighting for three seats from Asia and Australasia.

Lastly, the 48 members of the ITU Council will be elected. Here, too, seats will be distributed by region. From the Americas, 9 candidates are running for the same number of seats. In the other regions there are more candidates than seats available: 10 and 8 for Western Europe; 7 and 5 for Eastern Europe and North Asia; 17 and 13 for Africa; and 16 and 13 for Asia and Australasia.

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