Summary

  • RCC Member States propose a two-term ceiling across the ITU's five elected management posts. A term as bureau director would count if the same person later ran for Deputy Secretary-General.
  • The rule would begin with people first elected at the 2030 Plenipotentiary Conference. Anyone first elected before then is expressly exempt.

The ITU currently keeps five stopwatches behind five office doors. Finish your permitted time at one desk, and the clock for a different elected desk can still read zero. RCC Member States want one clock attached to the person.

Their Russian-language addendum 30, listed under PP-26 contribution 94 and posted on 23 October, proposes an aggregate ceiling of two elected terms. It names the Secretary-General, Deputy Secretary-General and directors of the three bureaux. A term in one post would be charged to the account for another. The sponsors say that would rotate leadership and widen the opening for candidates from developing countries and a broader geographic spread.

The current account is per desk. The ITU's election explanation says an official can serve two four-year terms in any one elected post and can seek a different post afterward. Convention Article 2, No. 13 phrases re-election as once for the same post, whether the terms are consecutive or separated. The proposed resolution would change the unit of counting from the office to the officeholder.

There is a large tag on the new stopwatch: 2030. The draft applies its aggregate rule to candidates first elected at the 2030 Plenipotentiary Conference or later. It explicitly exempts everyone first elected before that conference. The November 2026 election therefore would fill the five posts under the existing cross-post eligibility rule, even if delegates adopted the new resolution. The draft also asks serving ITU staff nominated for election to take unpaid special leave or resign from their international post.

The proposal's text contains no amendment to Convention Article 2. Before a cross-office cap can work as an election rule, delegates need to specify its legal route and how the election secretariat will count earlier service. The text gives a clear answer on one point already: the first cohort subject to that count enters in 2030.

Sources