The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) Plenipotentiary Conference will on October 23, 2014 elect the Union’s top five executives.
The posts to be contested include Secretary-General and Deputy Secretary-General, and the Directors of the Radio-communication, Telecommunication Standardization and Telecommunication Development Bureau as well as other governing bodies of the Union, the ITU Council and Radio Regulations Board.
According to the ITU, the current Deputy-Secretary-General Houlin Zhao, a Chinese national and respected telecoms engineer with over 30 years’ experience in the international environment, will be confirmed as ITU’s next Secretary-General.
Five candidates are contesting the post of Deputy Secretary-General while three candidates are contesting the post of Director of ITU’s Telecommunication Standardization Bureau. The current incumbent Directors of both the Radio-communication Bureau and the Telecommunication Development Bureau are running unopposed for a second term of office.
There are 20 candidates for the 12 seats on the Radio Regulations Board and 60 candidate countries for the 48 seats on ITU Council, the governing body which oversees the running of the Union in between quadrennial Plenipotentiary Conferences.