at the time these events happened, and as of today:

1. AFRINIC is under judicial restraint. The Government of Mauritius itself recognised in July 2025 that the receivership and winding-up petition were “legally questionable” and had paralysed the registry, preventing the issuance of IP addresses since November 2024, which strategically resumed just before the annulled election.

2. The membership was disenfranchised. Court orders meant that a wide base of AFRINIC members could not vote. That fact alone makes any attempt to extract a recorded “community consensus” on relocation highly problematic; it cannot credibly be presented as the will of the membership when so many were legally barred from participating or exercising their rights. When this board is elected, can they also vote on financials? or even enjoy other rights as other members?.

3. The timing was inappropriate. When an institution is paralysed, its priority should be survival, restoring lawful governance, and repairing its bylaws and legal foundation. Suggesting relocation at that moment diverted attention away from the root causes of the crisis and risked reinforcing a narrative that the African community itself was calling for relocation, when in reality, prior proposals in 2020–2021 had already been rejected, though informal. At the same time, it is an attempt to create unrest and doubts, or increase doubts about the host country. It is like a hoax that spreads widely and people believe it, relocating AFRINIC is not the solution, court is the only solution. But here there is a question, Why ethiopia and not Cape Verde? even when the suggestion in a way of question was on the table, the answer was given smartly and the new destination as well.

4. Strategic priority should have been elsewhere. If Smart Africa or other stakeholders wanted to exercise leadership, it would have been far more strategic to use their influence to lift the restrictions on member voting and enable a functioning Board, rather than organising a survey about moving AFRINIC.

The core issue is not whether relocation would eventually require member approval, but that raising it during a crisis, when AFRINIC’s very ability to function was being constrained, was both mistimed and potentially misleading.

> Moreover, in this election a segment of our membership cannot even vote,
> because of earlier court orders.  Would it not have been more strategic,
> [..]

perfect is the enemy of complete.
there are many parts of this election that many people would have liked to see be done differently.
you might see value in rehashing those - but, since we’re in the middle of an election where, we’ve ostensibly been able to get valid voters registered to vote, and there’s more than 170 votes cast (which is already better than most afrinic elections) -  i don’t.

I hear your point about “perfect being the enemy of complete,” but I believe this is not about perfection; it is about inclusion and legitimacy, adherence to governance norms and standards, and our own bylaw.

A paid-up member’s right to vote is a foundational principle of AFRINIC’s governance. When court orders have prevented a significant segment of the membership from exercising that right, moving ahead with an election is not simply an imperfect process; it risks being fundamentally defective. Participation numbers, whether 170 or 700, cannot substitute for the principle that all eligible members must be able to participate.

Even the Government of Mauritius, in its recent notices, acknowledged that the receivership and winding-up petitions had paralysed AFRINIC and were legally questionable. In that context, the more strategic course would have been to use Smart Africa’s convening power to work toward releasing those restrictions and restoring the voting franchise, rather than to launch a relocation survey. That would have aligned with the Ministerial Declaration’s emphasis on protecting AFRINIC as a bottom-up, member-driven institution【53:_EN__AFRINICs_MINISTERIAL_DECLARATION.pdf†L1-L20】.

Being “in the middle of an election” should not mean overlooking flaws that touch directly on inclusivity, due process, and ICP-2 compliance. If we are serious about safeguarding AFRINIC, then the order of priority must be: restore lawful voting rights, seat a legitimate board, rebuild our governance, and only then, if truly necessary, discuss long-term contingencies like relocation, transparently and with full community participation, not one-on-one hidden meetings.

> And finally, without any sense of discrimination but as a simple
> observation, I do find it striking that the call for “new blood” is
> directed at some, while at the same time, very familiar old faces continue
> to appear on the same lists. Renewal is important, but it must be genuine,
> not selective.

equally, i did not propose a single token criterion.  i suggested several, each of them relevant.  choosing to highlight only one, whilst ignoring the others is a deliberate narrowing of the discussion, and weakens your own case.  careful that you don’t advocate bias, wrapped up in principle ..

If the true intent were to help, the more strategic course would have been to support Afrinic in courts through strateic advise, legal representation, empower the member-base, at a minimum to focus on releasing the voting restrictions, enabling all members in good standing to participate, and working together to repair our governance and legal foundations, not to impose candidates and claim consensus. Only after that, with a legitimate Board in place and full enfranchisement restored, could long-term questions such as relocation be meaningfully and transparently discussed.