[governance] Final CSIGC Nominating Committee Cover Letter and Report

parminder parminder at itforchange.net
Sat Feb 25 12:18:04 EST 2012


I am also deeply disappointed that, as Deirdre said in her email as the 
reason for withdrawal of her nomination, the impression went around that 
nominees should be able to fund their travel etc. Another IGC members 
tells me offline that she knows a few more people who did not apply 
becuase of the same impression. This is not acceptable on principle.
Worse, I seem to know/ think that some nominated members themselves do 
not right now know where would they get their travel funding from if 
they indeed were selected and funds not available to fund them....

Parminder

On Saturday 25 February 2012 10:35 PM, parminder wrote:
> Dear All
>
> Most of the comments that I offer below are something I would prefer 
> to do on a closed members only list, but since, for reasons which 
> remain unclear to me, we dont have one, I will have to do so here.
>
> First of all, I agree with what Avri said in an email - the MAG 
> nomination process this time around has been a disaster. Let's not 
> mince our words, since it is not a small issue. It involves basic 
> questions of IGC's legitimacy in the eyes of the world. We cant simply 
> let it pass by saying, ok, we learn lessons from everything in life. 
> Civil society's very standing and legitimacy depends on its conduct, 
> its processes, since we dont come to occupy the position we do with an 
> specific politically legitimising process - nothing other than what we 
> stand for and what we do. And this is legitimacy that needs to be 
> renewed daily, and it is lost much much faster than it can be built.
>
> The primary responsible for what happened must lie with the non voting 
> chair, who, it is good to be reminded, unlike other nomcom members is 
> not selected by lottery. S/he volunteers to take up the task. So, when 
> I read hints of non performance of crucial tasks by the nomcom chair, 
> I dont know what to make of it. And why in that case was the chair not 
> replaced by the coordinators. And I cannot at all understand what is 
> meant by statements like the following in the nomcom report.
>
>     "....the participating members did not receive all communications
>     pertaining to the process."
>
>
> We need to know more clearly what is meant by this. What 
> communication, and who was responsible for it. I understand part of it 
> was that the nomcom did not get a very large proportion of the names 
> to be considered. Who is responsible for this? What really happened? 
> What else did not get communicated? These are basic issues of 
> transparency and accountability, and we need to come completely clean 
> on it. This is not being good and nice to each other. This is about 
> our vision and values for democratic governance processes. We cannot 
> go around preaching them to others if we cannot uphold even basic 
> standards ourselves.
>
> I think another important factor responsible for what happened is that 
> that one of the co coordinator (the more experienced one ) was himself 
> a candidate and thus could not involve himself to looking into and 
> correcting the mess that was obviously developing. Coordinators, as 
> the elected IGC office bearers, are the primary custodians of IGC's 
> processes, and election offices for nomination processes. And this 
> role is very necessary and can be performed without getting involved 
> in the actual decisions about selection of the nominees. This has been 
> done in earlier times. It is the coordinators who have to keep a very 
> close watch at the process - and make themselves pro-actively 
> available at all times to the nomcom for process related issues.
>
> It has been a practice for long that co-coordinators do not stand for 
> being nominated by an IGC noncom, and there was of course good reason 
> for that. I think that we should go back to that practice, and if 
> needed include it in the charter. I can clearly see how Izumi could 
> not have taken any action nor given advice when things were obviously 
> not going fine, and also, how, if he was in the position to do so, it 
> is my judgement, that much could have been averted.
>
> Just the fact that the names of a large proportion of the nominees did 
> not actually get considered by nomcom  - becuase apparently they did 
> not receive them - would make the outcome of the process infructuous  
> or invalid, though I dont want to labor this point. ( I believe that 
> though the process was almost fatally flawed, it is the collective 
> will of the IGC, including mine, the present set of nominees should 
> stay as the ones that are fully supported and forwarded by IGC.)
>
> I also think that the invitation for nomcom nominees was not 
> advertised enough, especially close to the deadline, which is when 
> most names pour in. Getting 10 nominees and selecting 7 of them does 
> not sound very good, and is unlikely to further our cause as a group 
> which claims to be the premier IG CS group, globally. And to advertise 
> well is both the duty of the nomcom chair and the coordinators.
>
> There were other oddities about the process - a list was put out as a 
> provisional list of selected people, of which I dont see any reason. 
> And then the nomcom report mentions this fact of putting out a 
> provisional list as the reason that they could not do any later 
> amendments etc. There simply seems to a lot of adhocism going around 
> about what has to be a very serious and responsible process.
>
> parminder
>
>
> On Saturday 25 February 2012 01:53 AM, Salanieta T. Tamanikaiwaimaro 
> wrote:
>> Dear All,
>>
>> Firstly, allow me to take the time to thank the NomCom for completing 
>> the task that was assigned to them. The work of the NomCom is not an 
>> easy one.  They faced extraordinary circumstances that made their 
>> work challenging.
>>
>> Their cover letter and report is enclosed. I thank all those who took 
>> the time to apply and congratulate the Nominees and note the 
>> recommendation by the NomCom to support APC's list of candidates. For 
>> those that did not make the selection, I hope that you will please 
>> try again when it opens up again.
>>
>> Kind Regards,
>>
>> Kind Regards,
>> Sala
>>
>> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>> From: *Thomas Lowenhaupt* <toml at communisphere.com 
>> <mailto:toml at communisphere.com>>
>> Date: Sat, Feb 25, 2012 at 7:24 AM
>> Subject: Final CSIGC Nominating Committee Cover Letter and Report
>> To: "Salanieta T. Tamanikaiwaimaro" 
>> <salanieta.tamanikaiwaimaro at gmail.com 
>> <mailto:salanieta.tamanikaiwaimaro at gmail.com>>, 
>> "nomcom at lists.igcaucus.org <mailto:nomcom at lists.igcaucus.org>" 
>> <nomcom at lists.igcaucus.org <mailto:nomcom at lists.igcaucus.org>>
>>
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