Welcome to BASE21

We hold the opinion that the allocation of nine Board seats, to be filled by elections by the At-Large Membership is fundamentally important to maintain the participatory bottom-up structure of ICANN, as originally envisioned.

To limit the At-Large Membership to domain name holders would - in terms of the economic and regulatory environments in many of our countries - immediately exclude citizens of our countries from participation.

If a balance of seats between board members elected by internet users and board members nominated by the internet suppliers groups is not achieved,the present unbalanced composition of the ICANN Board is threatening the legitimacy of ICANN as a whole.

The proposed principle of checks and balances between users, developers,and providers looks arbitrary and is not clear, as there are overlaps between developers and providers; moreover, it is not clear in the ALSC report which group is to be considered under which criteria. On the other hand, the structures of users versus suppliers, or of customers versus producers, is clear and a generally well known method of balancing interests. We cannot find in the ALSC report any convincing reason why the present 9 to 9 system is to be changed. A change of this 9 to 9 split is not representing a consensus in the internet community.

To avoid the financial burden of centralized at-large elections, we propose a regionally diversified at-large election procedure. Specifically, we recommend that the presently elected at-large directors initiate organizing regional at-large councils in consultation with existing and concerned groups and individuals that can assist in providing logistic and financial support for organizing regional internet user's participation in the ICANN process. Also the different possible models - e-mail address holders, without Web access or Web presence, or domain name holders - could be selected as membership criteria.

We therefore strongly plead for maintaining an At-Large structure where the internet community in many developing countries is not excluded from participation, to initiate the possibility for new At-Large members to register, to elect the remaining 4 directors also from four regions in rotated order, and to retain 9 seats for board members to be elected by the At-Large Membership. In each term, every region which has two directors will be chosen to fill the position of the region with only one director in the previous term

As new elections for the presently serving 5 at-large director positions are due to be held in 2002, time is running and urgent actions are needed.

23 Participants from Africa, Asia and East European Countries

Asomiddin Atoev / Tajikistan
Charles Musisi / Uganda
Christina Haralanova / Bulgaria
Chun Eung Hwi / Korea
Daniel Yakmut Inusa / Nigeria
Gilbert Lumantao / Phillipines
Hakikur Rahman / Bangladesh
Jeonghye Choi / Korea
Maman Sani Zakari / Niger
Mariusz Kondrat / Poland
Nino Kunstseva-Gabashvili / Georgia
Nobert Klein / Cambodia
Paulos Nyirenda / Malawi
Perpetus Jacques Houngbo / Benin
Rajesh Sharma / Thailand
Slobodan Markovic / Yugoslavia
Thierry Amoussougbo / Benin
Toshimaru Ogura / Japan
Valerie Gordon / Jamaica
William Tevie / Ghana
Xoliswa Kakana / South Africa
Yashar Hajiyev / Azerbaijan
Zenaida Ugart / Phillipines