If you are like me, you joined ICANN's Members at Large in the hope of supporting a trade union candidate (Eric Lee) in the forthcoming elections, only to discover that geographic location means you are not able to endorse him as a candidate. Frustrating. We can only wait and rely on our North American colleagues to give Eric the numbers.
But I suggest that there is still something we can do in our region to get better progressive and community representation on the ICANN Board. That is to endorse a progressive candidate in the Asia/Australia/Pacific region.
I have read through the policy statements of the @Large candidates in our region, and I think one stands out clearly as the best candidate. She is Yukika Matsumoto, an activist in a range of peace, women's and community organisations in Japan. In order to get on the ballot paper, she will need to receive endorsements from at least 2% of the @Large voters in the region, and have one of the top three numbers of endorsements from the region, which means she will need at least around 500 endorsements. This morning she has 217.
I strongly urge union activists from the Asia/Australia/Pacific region to endorse Ms Matsumoto before the end of August. I have copied her candidate's statement below so that you can see more about her. Ms Matsumoto does not identify as a trade unionist in her campaign statement, but she clearly would represent the interests of the non-commercial users of the internet, with strong involvement in progressive community organisations. If we do not work to get Ms Matsumoto onto the ballot paper, in my view it will be much harder to find anyone worth voting for to represent an alternative, progressive perspective in our region.
If you have taken the first step of joining up to ICANN, then please take this extra step NOW.
In solidarity.
Linda Gale
Federal Industrial Officer
Australian Education Union
Click here to view Yukika Matsumoto's official statement.