Bulgaria's candidate for UNESCO Director General, Irina Bokova, has been selected for the position after a final vote at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris.

Bokova won the final face off with controversial Egyptian candidate Faruq Hosni late on Tuesday in a final round of voting.

In a secret fourth ballot held late Monday Bokova was reported to have received exactly the same number of votes as Hosni. The vote has been clouded by Hosni making alleged anti-Jewish comments.

There were originally nine applicants for the position. Hosni had been seen as the favorite throughout the campaign as he had been nominated by Egypt, Kuwait, Sudan and Libya.

For Bokova's lobbying campaign the former Bulgarian socialist government allocated BGN 100 000.

UNESCO - the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was founded on 16 November 1945.

Today, UNESCO functions as a laboratory of ideas and a standard-setter to forge universal agreements on emerging ethical issues. The Organization also serves as a clearinghouse - for the dissemination and sharing of information and knowledge - while helping Member States to build their human and institutional capacities in diverse fields. In short, UNESCO promotes international co-operation among its 193 Member States and six Associate Members in the fields of education, science, culture and communication.

The organization's headquarters are in Paris, and it has over 50 offices and several institutes and centers around the world, like the Institute for Statistics in Montreal and the International Bureau of Education in Geneva.

Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Henri Bergson, Thomas Mann and Bela Bartok have all been a part of the UNESCO committee.

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