Press Release:

ISPA statement on AFRINIC elections

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On Monday, 23rd June, during the in-person AFRINIC elections held in Mauritius, serious problems with the election process became apparent. This included:

• Individuals arriving with more than 800 purported Powers of Attorney for AFRINIC members. (AFRINIC has fewer than 2400 members in total.)
• A duly authorised representative of a resource holder attempting to vote, only to be informed that another person had already submitted a vote on their behalf thanks to a Power of Attorney, which that resource holder had not provided to any third party.
• A representative of a resource holder, learning that a Power of Attorney had been submitted on their behalf, only to find that that particular Power of Attorney—the existence of which had already been recorded by AFRINIC staff—had been mysteriously removed from the record by the time a copy was requested.

There have been multiple additional reports from other organisations around Africa that individuals appear to have voted on their behalf based on seemingly fraudulent Powers of Attorney.

These concerns were drawn to the attention of the Chairs of AFRINIC’s Nominations and Elections Committees during the course of voting on Monday. While the Chairperson of the Nominations Committee did eventually “suspend” voting, it has become abundantly clear that the option for unlimited in-person voting based on unverified Powers of Attorney has opened up the AFRINIC election to manipulation and potential fraud. Consequently, ISPA’s attorney opened a criminal case with the Mauritian police on Monday evening.

ISPA calls upon AFRINIC and the Official Receiver:

• To cooperate fully with the police investigation of this matter.
• To nullify the “suspended” election.
• To publish a full list of the organisations on whose behalf Powers of Attorney were submitted to AFRINIC, so that those organisations can be made aware of the possible misrepresentation of their organisations.
• To review the Election Guidelines and Mechanisms to ensure that in-person voting representatives wielding Powers of Attorney are subject to appropriate verification that they do, in fact, represent the relevant resource holder. This must require a positive confirmation from the relevant resource holder.

It is vital to the development of the internet in Africa that an election for AFRINIC’s Board should take place as swiftly as possible. However it is imperative that the election process be free and fair. The current process clearly does not meet these requirements.

If your company is an AFRINIC resource member, and you have evidence that an unauthorised third party submitted a Power of Attorney on your behalf, please get in touch with ISPA (secretariat@ispa.org.za), so that we can put you in touch with the investigating officer handling the case in Mauritius.

Further Information

For further information, please contact the ISPA secretariat on the Contact ISPA page.