UN International Telecommunication Union Re-Elects Leadership For Another Four Years

Houlin Chao of China has been re-elected secretary-general of the UN International Telecommunication Union (ITU) in Geneva, with Malcolm Johnson of the United Kingdom re-elected as deputy secretary-general. Chao ran unopposed and received 176 votes, while Johnson defeated an opponent by garnering 113 votes. And in one of several other posts, ITU hailed the election of the first woman to a leadership position in the agency’s 153-year history. 

In other results, Chaesub Lee of Korea was re-elected director of the Telecommunication Standardization Bureau with 174 votes; Doreen Bogdan-Martin of the United States was elected director of the Telecommunication Development Bureau with 95 votes (majority of 89 was needed); and another round will be needed to decide the director of the Radiocommunicatiion Bureau as a majority was not reached by any candidate, according to the results below. [Update: the completion of the elections was reported by ITU here.]

Chao has served at ITU for decades, and as director since 2014.

The election took place during the ITU’s 20th Plenipotentiary Conference (PP-18) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, taking place from 29 October to 16 November.

A press release is available here.

The election results are here:

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The ITU press release is reprinted here:

Member States of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) have re-elected Houlin Zhao of China as ITU Secretary-General during the Union’s 20th Plenipotentiary Conference (PP-18) in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

The election took place in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, during the Plenary session of the PP-18 conference this morning. Zhao won the position with 176 votes, from 178 ballot papers d​​eposited. He contested the position unopposed. Full election results are available here.

Mr Zhao, an information and communication technology (ICT) engineer who has served in a variety of senior management positions at ITU, will begin his second, and last, four-year term on 1 January 2019.

“We continue to connect the unconnected,” says Zhao. “We are strengthening partnerships to implement our common vision of a connected world, where information and communication technology is a source for good for everyone everywhere.”

Prior to first being elected as ITU Secretary General in 2014, Zhao served eight years as ITU Deputy Secretary-General. He also served two elected terms as Director of ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Bureau (TSB), which develops technical standards to ensure worldwide ICT interoperability. Before that, he was a Senior Counsellor with TSB for 12 years.

“Since being elected Secretary-General of ITU in 2015, Houlin Zhao has attained marked achievements in overcoming the challenges that ITU faces in advancing its work and activities by way of promoting reform and innovation,” said Wei Miao, Minister of Industry and Information Technology of the People’s Republic of China in putting forward Zhao for re-election as ITU Secretary-General. “His pragmatism and spirit of teamwork has been widely recognized. We are confident that Mr Zhao will undoubtedly … continue to lead ITU in playing an even more important role in the worldwide development of information and communication technologies.”

Electing ITU’s other top leaders

The ITU Plenipotentiary Conference election process also includes the posts of ITU Deputy Secretary-General, Director of ITU’s Radiocommunication Bureau, Director of ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Bureau and Director of ITU’s Telecommunication Development Bureau.

These elections will be followed by elections for the Radio Regulations Board and ITU Council, the governing body which oversees the running of ITU between quadrennial Plenipotentiary Conferences.

Image Credits: ITU