[seedig] Launching a new election process: Call for volunteers for the Election Committee

[Lianna Galstyan]

**

*Dear Zdravko, All,*

*

I'd like to reflect on some of the raised points in previous emails.


@Zdravko, yes, we are aware of the current challenging situation in 
SEEDIG and this is why we want to bring it on the right track with the 
help of community members.


Yes, inclusiveness is the key element within our initiative and this is 
why we launched a new election process and invite volunteers to step in 
and help with it.


Yes, we had very successful meetings and not only in Ljubljana, but the 
latest one in Bucharest was the best so far and we had received this 
feedback from our supporting organizations and participants. And in 
every meeting we had key persons behind that - Iliya for Sofia meeting, 
Dusan S. for Belgrade meeting, Sasho for Ohrid meeting, Dusan C. for 
Ljubljana meeting, Sorina for Bucharest meeting. Across these 5 years I 
can say that EVERY member of the Executive Committee has his/her 
invaluable role in its success.


I can assure that we have always encouraged and facilitated open 
discussions, always used every meeting opportunity be it at ICANN, IGF, 
EuroDIG, etc. to gather the community and ask for an advice how to make 
us even stronger. Isn't this the way to listen to each other? Isn't this 
the way for everyone to speak openly?


As for resignation of the remaining ExCom and a practical proposal for 
the remaining ExCom to continue the work for the SEEDIG 6 on an interim 
basis, this can't work in both ways. Either the ExCom resigns and we 
won't have the annual meeting in 2020 (as it will take several months to 
go through the process Zdravko suggests), or we continue our work 
according to the ToR, have the partial elections to strengthen the 
ExCom, and continue our endeavors for the future.


I'd like to remind you all that this is a volunteer work for all of us 
and if the community is free to comment, to be active or to stay as an 
observer, we, the ExCom have commitment to move the initiative forward. 
We follow the mission we all agreed upon and do our best to expand the 
SEEDIG activities and enhance the regional cooperation. We set 
milestones and follow them. And this systematic work is the key for the 
success we had in the last 5 years. And after hundreds of hours of 
dedicated volunteered work we receive a proposal to resign or a proposal 
for Dusan to make "concrete amendments to the framework according to 
which we should function as a community". First of all, we have always 
functioned as a community and we will continue to function as a 
community. Second, why should Dusan only - among all other ‘insiders’ 
(as you put in, Zdravko) – suggest changes to the current framework? The 
ToR was written by the community and its development can again be tasked 
to the community.


If the community wants to make amendments in the ToR, we can launch 
openly this process in parallel and endorse that during the annual 
meeting (while also keeping in mind, as Aleksandar indicated, that there 
is already a WG in place tasked with developing a proposal for a SEEDIG 
legal entity and a governing model for that entity). Meanwhile, let's 
follow the process of partial elections we launched and have this done 
smoothly and in full transparency.


I encourage everyone to focus on the future of our initiative, on the 
planning of the upcoming annual meeting, on expanding our activities in 
our host country Moldova.


Thank you all.


Best,


Lianna

*


On 12/26/2019 2:03 PM, Zdravko Jukić wrote:
>
> Dear SEEDIG friends,
>
> let us be honest with each other, our initiative is in crisis. I will 
> try to simplify the assessment of the situation. What I know is that 
> SEEDIG in Ljubljana was a great success and that one of the key people 
> responsible for that success was Dušan C. What I also know and it 
> would be very difficult to convince me the opposite is the fact that 
> Sorina works 24/7 for the initiative. For some reason there was a 
> conflict in the Exec Committee that could not be resolved internally 
> so it spilled out to the community and unfortunately beyond.
>
> What now?
>
> I still think that SEEDIG is a valuable place to facilitate regional 
> cooperation. Because of all the good heritage collected over the 
> period of more than five years now, we should all come together and 
> try to resolve the conflict.
>
> How to do that? I would suggest to do it with as many community 
> members as possible.
>
> As inclusiveness is one of the key values of SEEDIG, we need to get 
> everyone back in the discussion and I would propose to ask Dušan to 
> propose concrete amendments to the framework according to which we 
> should function as a community. After that, we would have a broad 
> consultation within the community on those proposals. This should last 
> not more than one month, and the final proposed changes would need to 
> be supported by more than (certain percentage, tbd in the process) of 
> all the members of the community.
>
> In order to facilitate this process I would also propose that the 
> current remaining members of the Exec Committee resign until the new 
> elections take place. The new elections would then be organised 
> according to the new framework as agreed by the community.
>
> I wish you all a happy New Year and hope that we all, as a community, 
> come stronger out of the current situation.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Zdravko
>
> --
>
> Zdravko Jukić
>
> Deputy Executive Director
>
> tel: +385 1 7007 375
>
> mobile: +385 91 722 3103
>
> email:zdravko.jukic at hakom.hr <mailto:zdravko.jukic at hakom.hr>
>
> cid:image002.png at 01D39434.9263A350
>
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> expressed in the message are of the author and do not necessarily 
> represent the views of HAKOM.
>
> PRAVNE NAPOMENE: Ova elektronička pošta (i sve priložene datoteke) je 
> povjerljiva i namijenjena je osobi ili osobama na koje je naslovljena. 
> Ukoliko ste primili ovu poruku greškom, molimo Vas, obavijestite 
> pošiljatelja, a poruku i sve njene privitke odmah, bez čitanja, trajno 
> uklonite s računala. Bilo kakvo prenošenje, kopiranje ili distribucija 
> informacija sadržanih u poruci trećim osobama je zabranjeno i može 
> biti zakonski kažnjivo. Pošiljatelj ne prihvaća nikakvu odgovornost za 
> bilo kakvu štetu ili gubitak podataka do kojeg može doći korištenjem 
> ove elektroničke pošte. Sadržaj, stavovi i mišljenja izneseni u poruci 
> su autorovi i ne predstavljaju nužno stavove HAKOM-a.
>
> *From:*seedig [mailto:seedig-bounces at lists.rnids.rs] *On Behalf Of 
> *Peter Sterle
> *Sent:* Tuesday, December 24, 2019 9:15 AM
> *To:* seedig at rnids.rs
> *Subject:* Re: [seedig] Launching a new election process: Call for 
> volunteers for the Election Committee
>
> Dear community,
>
>
> the latest developments in the SEEDIG community really made me 
> depressive.
>
> At a time when we are experiencing ruthless processes of 
> commercialization and monopolization of the Internet, and on the other 
> hand the use of the Internet to suppress personal freedoms, is a 
> community that her priority task should be to scrutinize these 
> developments, trapped in squabbles, nudges and deliberate sowing of 
> discord.
>
> Probably I should have come forward earlier when a reputable member of 
> the community was under unjust and baseless attack. But the petition 
> was so beyond all common sense that I assumed that reason would 
> prevail and the matter would calm down. When another experienced and 
> distinguished member of the community resigned from his position in 
> executive committee, his resignation was immediately presented as 
> something that was unrelated to the attack on other member of 
> executive board and a petition. Again a new distortion of the facts. 
> Unfortunately, in every community, there is a group that is prone to 
> respond to incentives stemming from low intentions. For various 
> reasons: inexperience, personal vendetta, tracking his or her 
> superior, or just an inability to resist herd instinct.
>
> With all this said, I can understand why most active and reputable 
> members of the international Internet community did not respond: the 
> whole matter was from the beginning so much below every cultural level 
> of communication that you can anticipate in advance that any, even the 
> most well-intentioned, intervention would receive a false 
> interpretation as an attack on a particular person.
>
> I honestly wonder which executive committee members and why were not 
> able to lead by example and withstand open and honest dialogue when it 
> came to the values and the future of SEEDIG, and why they were not 
> able to discuss and overcome the differences? Why some executive 
> committee members have been afraid of open and honest dialogue and 
> have resorted to such abhorrent defamation?
>
> With the resignation of the two prominent executive committee members, 
> SEEDIG can not be any longer considered as a broad church Internet 
> community but rather as an exclusive club for particular purposes. As 
> such, I cannot give legitimacy to the existing executive committee 
> members and the SEEDIG as a whole with my membership. Therefore, I 
> cancel my membership in the SEEDIG community and also ask to be 
> removed from the mailing list.
>
> I wish you all a peaceful and happy holidays and a lot of health and 
> success in the new year,
>
> Peter Sterle
>
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