Another election
IBC : Management Board elections have just been completed
This seems to be a month of elections …
- In America there was the Presidential election, not to mentions State Governors, Senators, Members of the House of Representatives and a whole host of referenda on items as varied as the legislation of marijuana, gay marriage and so on;
- In China there is the election of the top ruling bodies of the Communist Party, the Central Committee, the Politburo and the Standing Committee;
- In England and Wales there are controversial new elections for Police Commissioners, whose responsibilities will include setting priorities for their police force, overseeing its budget and hiring the chief constable;
- In Kyrgyzstan there are elections to the local authorities such as the Bishkek City authorities;
On a slightly different scale, there have also been the elections to the Management Board of International Business Council, (IBC).
I had a particular interest in the last of these elections – for the IBC Management Board – as I have served on it for most of the last twelve years … since before the organization was formerly registered and was just an informal “club” of foreign investors. I say of the last twelve years because there were a couple of short breaks: one when the rules changed because we were formerly registered and a when I took a year out.
For the record: for this last year I have also served as Vice Chairman.
In China the successful candidates have a ten year term of office … the US President, on the other hand, has a maximum of eight years in office but it is not guaranteed as he, (she?), has to go through the whole process again half way through to get confirmed in office for a second term.
In Britain there is no set timetable for the General Parliamentary election which decides the make up the government – just an maximum of five years between elections. There is no limit as to how long a successful candidate can serve – look at Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair – but they have to work hard to keep the confidence of their party and the country to stay in office and few manage to maintain such a lengthy period in office.
Local elections, everywhere, tend to be according to a specific timetable with set terms of office, but rarely set a limit on how long, how many terms of office, a successful candidate can serve.
IBC has a mix of regulations – members of the Management Board are elected for two years, but elections are staggered with half the places on the board being elected one year and the other half the next. The idea is to provide a sense of continuity – as there should always be some of the members of the board who were party to previous decisions. In theory, there is no limit to how many times one can stand – but to be honest … I think there comes a point when “fresh blood” is needed and so, this year, I decided that it was time to stand down … to let other people come forward and be elected.
As it happens, I enjoyed watching the events unfolding as the results were announced following the American election. It was odd seeing the a results being called almost immediately. They seem to work on the basis of exit polls and statistical analysis and, oddly enough, it seems that they although they sometimes have to amend the announcement, they do get it right most of the time.
Of course, the performance of Nate Silver, the statistical analyst who managed to predict the eventual result was pretty incredible … whereas other polls were implying that it was all the balance at 50-50, he was giving Obama a 90% certainty of election weeks before the poll based on a variety of data. He got it right – even predicting the way that each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia would fall … and four years ago he got a similar result – but it wasn’t perfect because he got one state wrong. Next time round … I guess that everyone will be doing all they can to “upset his apple cart” – but, credit where credit is due … this year’s performance was impressive.
Because of the time difference between the States and Central Asia, I didn’t have to stay up all night, like I would have back home, because whilst it was night time here, people were still queueing up at the polling stations. When I was getting out of bed, the first results were being called and I was able watch the unfolding drama. To make it easier, Results Bay happened to be a public holiday with virtually no-one in the office, so it was easier to watch it than it would have been on an ordinary working day.
We seem to do things quite differently in the UK … the ballot papers are brought to a large hall where they are separated and counted … it can be hours before an individual result is announced, but most are announced overnight.
Here, the ballots are counted directly in the polling stations and the results telephoned into the offices of the Central Elections Commission … where the results are all tabulated. The various protocols are checked and it can take days before we get a final results are announced.
For the IBC election, ballot papers were sent out to members who returned them completed to the office. Although the final result will be known quite quickly, a formal announcement won’t be made until a meeting is held. Although the elections are now over and all the ballot papers are supposed to have been returned … I don’t know the results – but I do know that there will be at least one new person on the Board next year.
Well, whoever does get elected … I wish them luck!
Bishkek