Progress report for World Sailing election

(October 17, 2020) – The process to elect the World Sailing President took a step forward when 127 Member National Authorities submitted a verified vote to the Independent Scrutineer by the deadline of 1500hrs UTC on October 16.

As required by the regulations, a candidate for President must obtain more than 50% of the votes in order to be elected. If no candidate receives more than 50% of the votes, then a runoff vote must be held between the top two candidates.

As no candidate received more than 50% of the votes, a second round of voting will therefore be required.

The second round will be between:

• Kim Andersen (DEN)
• Quanhai Li (CHN)

This is a notable outcome as Scott Perry (URU) and Gerardo Seeliger (ESP) were both prominent candidates, but Andersen came into the election having fulfilled his first four-year term as President (two terms are permitted), while Li seeks to advance from his position as World Sailing Vice President.

Voting packs will now be sent to MNA Officers on the morning October 20 with voting to close at 1500hrs UTC on October 23.

While the Presidential election continues, the Vice Presidential Election to appoint seven positions, with 15 candidates in contention, achieved results during this first round of voting that fulfilled the requirements so no further rounds of voting are necessary.

Participation in the election is strong as there were 100 voting delegates in 2016 and 114 in 2012. This is likely due to the election being online, as it normally is held in person during the Annual Conference but is being held virtually this year due to COVID-19.

The results for both the President and Vice Presidents for the 2021-2024 term will be revealed on November 1, 2020.

Background:
World Sailing is the world governing body for the sport of sailing, officially recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Paralympic Committee (IPC). Founded in 1907, World Sailing is made up of 145 Member National Authorities, the national governing bodies for sailing around the world and 117 World Sailing Class Associations.