[WSIS CS-Plenary] recommendations for WGIG

[Milton Mueller]

>>> vb at bertola.eu.org 10/7/2004 9:56:35 AM >>>
>I am sorry to shock you, but civil society doesn't do elections.
>Governments do elections. We do advocacy. These are two very 
>different things.

Vittorio:
I take your quote out of context to make a bigger point.

As long as CS "doesn't do elections" its results will have 
legitimacy problems, and as long as that is true it will
have trouble fully participating in international governance
decisions. You cannot ask for governmental forms of power
without accepting similar forms of procedural formality and
accountability. This is a deep problem. You may be in 
denial about it. I know that some of the other key members
of IGC are.

The IGC's method of selecting candidates was not a thing
of beauty. Let's face the facts about that. It was rushed,
disorganized, improvised, not transparent and in the end 
based far too much on personal connections and reflective 
of personal agendas. 

Given our institutional limitations it could not have 
been done much better. But let's not 
rationalize our failings, let's accept them as a 
basis for building better structures going forward. 
The NCUC for example is a CS coalition with a charter and 
elected officers; its process for selecting nominees was far
smoother, more transparent, and ultimately fairer,
although it did not have to incorporate such a large
and heterogeneous group into its deliberations.

The caucus's process gave everyone involved
some voice in the outcome. Let's hold our noses and 
accept the results and think more pro-actively about
how to do it better next time. I would urge the critics
of the results to also reflect on what is accomplished
by picking at individual names at this juncture. Probably
very little - the names have been transmitted and any
attempt to change them raises more problems than it
solves. We had our process, now let's live with it.
 
--MM