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WIPO votes -- and it's bad news in the Balkans

By Johanna Gibson, David Pearce, Jeremy Phillips and Ilanah Simon.

Posting on the excellent Intellectual Property Watch weblog, William New brings news of the first round of voting for the next Director-General of the World Intellectual Property Organization. The votes cast so far are as follows:

Francis Gurry (Australia) 24
José Graça Aranha (Brazil) 16
Masood Khan (Pakistan) 13
Yoshiyuki Takagi (Japan) 6
Jorge Amigo Castañeda (Mexico) 4
Philippe Petit (France) 4
Alicja Adamczak (Poland) 3
Enrique Manalo (Philippines) 3
Toufiq Ali (Bangladesh) 2
James Otieno Odek (Kenya) 2
Boris Simonov (Russia) 2
José Delmer Urbizo (Honduras) 2
Bojan Pretnar (Slovenia) 1
Gjorgji Filipov (Macedonia) 1

Bojan Pretnar and Gjorgji Filipov -- who had his own campaign website -- are both eliminated.

Masood Khan has polled well, as the Pakistan Daily Times predicted. According to that source,

"Some diplomats who follow UN activities in Geneva say the WIPO election could reflect a wider struggle for influence in the world body between Western nations and Islamic countries and their allies -- African states, Russia, China and Cuba. ?North? countries have 30 seats on the committee, the OIC has 18 and non-Islamic African and Asian states ? including China, North Korea and Russia ? that normally line up with the OIC in the Rights Council, have 20".

Full post as published by IPKat on May 13, 2008 (boomark / email).