Summary

  • Registration for AFRINIC’s 18 November PDP Co-Chair selection closes at 23:59 UTC on 29 October; the candidate list is scheduled for 14:00 UTC on 6 November.
  • The interval is seven days, fourteen hours and one minute. AFRINIC’s 2026 Election Guidelines separately suggest two weeks for vetting, while expressly saying that every duration in that table is indicative only.
  • Rolling review may fully explain the difference. A privacy-safe processing receipt would show whether early and late files passed through the same stages without exposing candidate evidence before the slate.

A precise interval, not a verdict

At 23:59 UTC on 29 October, AFRINIC’s published registration window for its next PDP Co-Chair closes. At 14:00 UTC on 6 November, its dedicated election page says the candidate list will be published. Between those two timestamps lie 182 hours and one minute: seven days, fourteen hours and one minute.

That arithmetic is the useful fact. It is also the limit of what the calendar proves.

The separate Election Guidelines contain a suggested schedule. They allocate four to six weeks to a call for nominations, two weeks to a vetting period, a candidate slate one week before voting and five days to voting. The sentence immediately above the table matters more than the tidy durations beneath it: they are “indicative only.” The November Co-Chair choice is a consensus selection at a Public Policy Meeting, not a ballot to which every voting entry can simply be transferred.

So there is no defensible basis for saying that AFRINIC has broken a fourteen-day rule. There is no such hard rule in the cited table. Nor does the public record establish that vetting begins on 30 October. A Nomination Committee can receive an application on 2 October, check it while the window remains open and reserve the final week for late files, clarifications and slate assembly.

That is not an evasive counterargument. It is probably the operationally sensible way to run the process. The unexplained join lies elsewhere.

The work hidden between application and slate

AFRINIC’s guidelines give NomCom more to do than count forms. The committee issues the call, receives and processes nominations, may interview candidates, verifies eligibility, prepares the final eligible slate and supervises the selection process. For a Co-Chair, the inputs are not trivial. The criteria touch residence in the service region, familiarity with the Policy Development Process and consensus practice, sustained mailing-list activity, participation in AFRINIC events, technical understanding, current policy authorship and support from two distinct Resource Members in good standing.

Those tests can draw on different records and different people. A support letter may be present but not yet verified. A filing may arrive before its evidence is complete. A reviewer may need a clarification that changes no underlying eligibility fact but changes when the file can be decided. “Submitted”, “complete”, “under review”, “eligible” and “on the slate” are different states.

The calendar publishes only the outer edges. It does not say whether NomCom starts work as files arrive, whether a second review is used, what makes an application complete, how clarification time is treated or whether a candidate can correct a factual error before publication. None of those omissions proves bad administration. Together, however, they prevent an outside reader from testing the strongest defence: that rolling review preserves the same substantive treatment even when applicants enter the queue at different times.

The late-file test

Consider a candidature completed at the final permitted minute. This is a test case, not a claim that such an application exists. No committee can verify a complete file before the file is complete. The most that can remain after the deadline is the published interval to 6 November.

An early file might spend two calendar weeks in the system. A late file cannot. That difference need not be unfair. Equal treatment should mean the same relevant tests, competent reviewers, opportunity to resolve equivalent defects and a recorded decision—not identical wall-clock residence. A simple file may require less elapsed time than a complicated one. A late applicant also accepts the consequence of using the whole open period.

But once calendar time differs, the institution needs evidence that stage quality did not. Otherwise the public must choose between two unsupported stories: either NomCom performed rolling diligence, or the deadline compressed the final cases. The published dates alone cannot distinguish them.

The point is especially important for this role. AFRINIC describes PDP Co-Chairs as neutral custodians of process who are expected to ensure equal treatment, document consensus and keep the policy machinery predictable. The appointment process need not demand from NomCom a transparency standard lower than the one the eventual Co-Chair is expected to uphold.

Publish the path, protect the file

The answer is not to expose candidate dossiers. AFRINIC’s guidelines also recognise data-protection duties. A useful public receipt can describe processing without disclosing the evidence being processed.

For each candidature, NomCom could create a pseudonymous case key and record: initial submission time; completeness time; required eligibility inputs received; reviewer assignment; whether an interview was used; clarification requests and responses; decision time; candidate notification; and any correction, withdrawal or dispute state. The private record would contain the underlying documents and reasons. The public record could wait until the slate appears and then show aggregates.

Those aggregates should be capable of answering narrow questions. How many files arrived in the first, middle and final portions of the window? How many were complete on receipt? What were the median and maximum processing times for each cohort? How many required clarification? How many were complete, incomplete, eligible, ineligible or withdrawn at the slate cut-off? Reason categories can remain broad enough to protect identity while still showing whether the same classes of defect received the same opportunity to be cured.

This is Theo March’s proposed control, not an AFRINIC feature announced in the sources. It does not tell NomCom whom to accept. It establishes the state transition from application to published slate and permits corrections to be traced without rewriting history.

The July results notice explains why the November process exists. In the earlier 2026 round, only one candidate was found eligible, so one incumbent remained in the second position until the next Public Policy Meeting on 18 November. That history does not predict how many people will apply now. It does make the quality of the next slate-forming record consequential: the selection fills a role that helps decide whether future policy discussions have reached consensus.

Sources