Bogdan-Martin Expected to Be Elected ITU Secretary-General

ITU votes are difficult to handicap, but Doreen Bogdan-Martin remains the front-runner to be the organization's next secretary-general, industry experts said Wednesday. The vote is scheduled for Thursday in Bucharest, Romania. The other major candidate is Russian nominee Rashid Ismailov, who mounted his campaign despite concerns across the world over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (see 2205110075).

Anthony Rutkowski, former counselor to two secretaries-general and a former chief of the Relations Between Members Division, said Bogdan-Martin will win. “The only question at this point is the size of her majority,” Rutkowski emailed: “I'm expecting about 80% of the approximately 175 votes available.”

“Russia's continuing failures in U.N. votes suggests that the prospects” for Bogdan-Martin “are good,” said New Street’s Blair Levin: “The secret ballot procedure makes it harder to predict.”

Bogdan-Martin is likely to win, based both on the merits “and the current politics,” said Rob Frieden, Penn State University emeritus professor of telecommunications and law. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will mean pushback against Ismailov, while some opposition could come from African nations increasingly upset at China’s Belt and Road Initiative and seeing a vote for Bogdan-Martin as a route to expressing that to the Russia/China block at the ITU, Frieden said. Meanwhile, there remains “considerable goodwill” toward Bogdan-Martin and the U.S. at the ITU, he said.

Bogdan-Martin could become secretary-general at a particularly challenging time, Frieden said. As incumbent Houlin Zhao of China leaves the post, China might feel less constrained at the ITU, he said. It might try to use the ITU process politically to retaliate against the U.S. for such things as its rip-and-replace policy for Chinese-made telecom network technology, he said.

“This is an interesting time geopolitically,” agreed Cooley’s Robert McDowell. “Russia’s historic client states have qualms about supporting a Russian due to the invasion of Ukraine and Russia’s weak performance there,” he said: “At the same time, Doreen has proven to be a hard-working and earnest consensus builder in her current ITU post. I think she has the edge and will make a fantastic secretary-general.”

The election is about the future of the internet, said Joe Kane, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation director-broadband and spectrum policy. “Countries in favor of a more open future for the internet and other ITU policy areas can see the danger in Russian leadership of such an important organization,” he said: “Bogdan-Martin has demonstrated her vision of universal connectivity and individual empowerment, so she is a natural choice for those nations.” Kane said many countries “do not share the vision of internet openness embodied by Bogdan-Martin and the United States, so the vote is not a sure thing.”

Leadership at the ITU "would be a significant advantage to the U.S. in a variety of ITU fields, since setting the agenda and using the bully pulpit would allow U.S. policy priorities to rise to the top,” Kane said. “A vision of universal connectivity would be good for the technological and economic developments that would benefit the United States both commercially and politically since U.S. companies and consumers benefit from a larger and more diverse digital economy,” he said.

Leadership of the ITU isn’t clear-cut, Rutkowski said. “The ITU is a federation of four different bodies that are largely autonomous by design, and the Secretary-General runs only one of them -- the General Secretariat -- and serves at the direction of the Plenipotentiary Conference and the ITU Council,” he said: “With that said, the Secretary-General can play a very significant coordination and leadership role for the entirety of the organization and deploy resources to benefit both the organization and the world.”

Top U.S. officials were in Bucharest for the vote and expressed their support for Bogdan-Martin. President Joe Biden went on record last week (see 2209210001).

“As we look to Thursday's election of the @ITU 's Secretary-General, @DoreenBogdan is the right leader to take the ITU into the digital future,” Michele Sison, assistant secretary of state for international organization affairs, tweeted Wednesday.

“Across the U.S. government, we are united in support of Doreen Bogdan-Martin for @ITU Secretary-General!” NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson tweeted. “I believe @DoreenBogdan would be a great choice to lead the @ITU,” tweeted FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. “We share a commitment to connecting everyone, everywhere to affordable broadband.”

In a Brookings Institution post last month, former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler called the ITU “the most important UN agency you have never heard of.” The election is “a competition between two visions of the internet: an open internet, or a kind of state-controlled internet that resembles Russia’s and China’s,” Wheeler said.