ICANN dodges bullet as American elected to ITU top job
The International Telecommunications Union has elected Doreen Bogdan-Martin as Secretary-General, comfortably defeating a Russian candidate who could have caused serious problems for ICANN’s legitimacy.
She won 139 votes out of 172 cast at the agency’s plenipotentiary in Bucharest, the ITU said. She only needed 83. Rashid Ismailov of the Russian Federation, the only other candidate, received 25 votes.
A couple of weeks ago, ICANN CEO Göran Marby took a rare political stance against the Russian’s platform, warning that it could lead to a fragmented internet and the death of ICANN.
Ismailov would have pushed for multilateral internet governance, with the ITU absorbing the functions of ICANN and other multistakeholder organizations.
Bogdan-Martin is American and much more amenable to the status quo.
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