UNESCO Choice Reveals North and South Rift

Views on BG | September 24, 2009, Thursday // 10:05
Bulgaria: UNESCO Choice Reveals North and South Rift Bulgarian former Foreign Minister Irina Bokova delivered a speech after being elected Director General of the UNESCO at the organization headquarters in Paris, France, 22 Sept 2009. Photo by EPA/BGNES

By Kerin Hope in Athens and Ben Hall in Paris
Financial Times

The election of the new head of Unesco, the United Nations culture and learning arm, has exposed a deep rift between developed and developing countries after the Arab frontrunner surprisingly lost after coming under attack for alleged racism.

Late on Tuesday a rank outsider - Irina Bokova, Bulgaria's ambassador to France - was chosen as the first woman and the first eastern European to lead the agency. Ms Bokova, 57, emerged to beat Farouk Hosny, Egypt's long-serving culture minister, in the fifth round of a secret ballot after two countries on Unesco's executive board switched sides at the last minute and backed her.

"Nobody really took her candidacy seriously," said an EU diplomat in Paris.

Supporters of Mr Hosny said the bitter contest could damage north-south relations. "No one from the Arab or Muslim world has made it to the top of Unesco while Europe has had the post several times," Nasser Hossam, who had led Mr Hosny's election campaign, told Reuters.

Unesco has had nine director-generals since its foundation in 1946, including the present incumbent, Japan's Koichiro Matsuura, of which only two have been from the industrially less-developed world.

Mr Hosny was a controversial candidate because of remarks he made last year in Egypt's parliament when he said he would burn Israeli books if anyone could find them in the Alexandria Library and also because of his role in political censorship.

Mr Hosny has apologised, saying he had spoken carelessly in the heat of the moment when he was being pressed by an Islamist member of parliament. His words, he said, should be understood in the context of the suffering of the Palestinians.

But observers said the Egyptian finally lost the contest because of doubts about his competence to run the UN body. He performed "noticeably badly" in presentations to the board, said an ambassador to Unesco.

"Wiser heads among the board members had little doubt that the major finance providers would have been reluctant to put money into an organisation led by Hosny," the diplomat added.

Additional reporting by Theodor Troev in Sofia

 

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Tags: Irina Bokova, UNESCO

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