New at the Top - Changes to the Executive Council and the Commissions

FIAT/IFTA has a new President and a new General Secretary: Dr Peter Dusek (ORF, Austria) became new President and Lasse Nilsson (SVT, Sweden) became General Secretary at the 1998 FIAT/IFTA Conference in Florence.

Peter Dusek, Dominique Saintville, Sue Malden and Lasse Nilsson.
Photo: Gösta Johansson

The term of office for Tedd Johansen as President, and Steve Bryant as General Secretary came to an end at this year's FIAT/IFTA Conference. The replacement for Tedd Johansen was, in keeping with the statutes, to be decided upon by Full members present at the General Assembly. The General Secretary was to be chosen by the Executive Council among its members.

There were four candidates for the post of President: Dr Peter Dusek, Lasse Nilsson, Dominique Saintville (INA, France) and Sue Malden (BBC, UK). The voting procedure agreed upon by the candidates was that if a candidate received a majority of the votes he/she was the winner, otherwise the candidate/s with the least votes were eliminated and a second ballot would be held.

In the first ballot the total number of votes was 53. Dr Peter Dusek received 23 votes, Dominique Saintville 15 votes, Lasse Nilsson 9 votes and Sue Malden 6 votes. Lasse Nilsson and Sue Malden were eliminated from the second ballot. The total number of votes in the second ballot was 53. Dr Peter Dusek received 36 votes and Dominique Saintville 17 votes.

Peter Dusek was declared the winner and new President of FIAT/IFTA.

There was also an election for the Executive Council. There were four positions to be filled and four candidates: Jyrki Stolt (YLE, Finland), Dominique Saintville (INA, France), Tedd Johansen (NRK, Norway), Vittorio Sette (RAI, Italy). These four were unanimously elected.

At the Executive Council meeting after the General Assembly Sue Malden, Dominique Saintville and Tedd Johansen were elected vice-presidents. During that meeting it was also decided that Wolfgang Dehn (SWR, Germany) will continue as Treasurer and that Dr Peter Dusek and Lasse Nilsson will step down as chairs of the Training Commission and Programming & Production Commission respectively following their new positions.