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Why did the GNSO fail to pick a new leader?

Kevin Murphy, October 22, 2015, 19:49:55 (UTC), Domain Policy

Political infighting between sections of the Generic Names Supporting Organization seems to be responsible for the GNSO Council’s failure to elect a new chair yesterday.
Rumor has it that Contracted Parties House pick James Bladel, a VP at Go Daddy, only lost because of ructions in the Non-Contracted Parties House.
I stress these are just rumors — nobody with any first-hand knowledge of the situation was prepared to go on-record with me today — but they come from multiple sources.
As I reported earlier today, Bladel failed to secure the support of over 60% of the NCPH — the threshold to be elected chair — despite having the unanimous support of the CPH.
Roughly 47% of the NCPH chose to vote for “none of the above” instead, resulting in the GNSO Council now lacking a chair.
But I gather that this was not a diss against Bladel, his employer, or the CPH per se.
Rather, the story I’m hearing is that some councilors gave an empty chair their votes as a result of disagreements between the commercial and non-commercial sides of the NCPH.
Some say a deal had been made under which NCPH candidate Heather Forrest would receive at least 60% of the vote in round one, but some voters reneged on the deal, meaning she was knocked out of the running.
I don’t know if that’s true or not, but what it implies is that some votes that would have otherwise gone to Bladel in round two of voting were withheld, essentially out of spite.
Bladel only needed one additional NCPH vote to hit his 60%.
If this sounds like childish bickering, you may be right, but it wouldn’t be the first time a GNSO constituency has disrupted the council in order to make a point.
The last time that happened to a significant degree was over three years ago, when non-commercial users exploited a timing issue to protest new rights protection mechanisms for the Olympics, risking the new gTLD program timeline.
That led some at the time to predict the “death” of the GNSO.
That’s not happening this time. If anything, the wagons are circling.
Hastily reappointed council vice chair Volker Greimann, who became de facto chair at least for today, described the current situation as “business as usual” today, pointing out that ICANN bylaws envisaged and accounted for this kind of power vacuum.
The next vote on the chair’s position will take place at least a month from now.

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Comments (1)

  1. Rubens Kuhl says:
    October 22, 2015 at 10:35 pm

    A candidate that reaches 60% of one house votes but still has less than the other candidate when the percentages are added up would still not go to the 2nd ballot. So even if Forrest got 80% of NCPH and Bladel 20% of NCPH, when it adds up with 100% of CPH for Bladel, that would have been 120% x 80% and make her not make to the 2nd ballot.

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