Summary

  • RCC Member States propose a two-term lifetime total across ITU's five elected executive posts and unpaid special leave or resignation for serving staff once nominated.
  • The draft applies those provisions only to new candidates elected in 2030 or later. Anyone first elected before 2030 stays outside them, including this year's winners.

The ITU is about to elect five leaders. A group of Member States has brought a proposal to limit how long a person can move among those five offices. Then it left the upcoming winners outside the limit. The exception is in the text, not between its lines.

Addendum 30 to PP-26 Contribution 94, submitted by Member States of the Regional Commonwealth in the field of Communications, would allow the same candidate at most two terms in total as Secretary-General, Deputy Secretary-General or one of the three Bureau Directors. A term as Director would count if that person later sought the Deputy Secretary-General's office. The current ITU election explainer describes two four-year terms in any one elected post and no restriction on someone from a different elected post standing for another. The draft closes that cross-office route for future entrants.

Its effective-date clauses do the other half of the work. The aggregate cap and a new staff-campaign rule would start with new candidates elected at the 2030 Plenipotentiary Conference or later. Anyone first elected before that conference would be exempt. The 2026 class therefore receives the existing per-post ceiling, while a first-time winner in 2030 would face the proposed across-office total. The draft says nothing that removes the old per-post rule for the earlier class. It is a transition designed around people, not merely around calendar years.

The same boundary applies to campaign leave. Under the proposal, a serving ITU staff member nominated by a Member State for one of the five offices would have to take special leave without pay or resign from international duties from nomination. Its sponsors say this would keep administrative resources out of campaigns and put candidates on equal terms. They name no case of misuse. ITU's published PP-26 procedures put the nomination deadline at 12 October. This draft was posted on 31 October, and the election begins on 12 November. Its proposed campaign rule is pointed at a later ballot.

The drafting choice matters because office rotation is the sponsors' stated reason for the cap. A rule that counts each office separately can allow a leader to seek another chair after two terms in the first. A rule that counts the person across offices closes that path. Exempting everyone first elected before 2030 preserves it for the very cohort about to take charge through 2027–30. Delegates may choose that transition, but it should be called what it is when they vote. The proposal remains a draft; the adopted PP-26 text will decide whether the cap, staff rule and exception survive.