Bulgarian Defeats Egyptian in Unesco Vote

[Tender Branson]

PARIS — In a fifth and final round of voting, a Bulgarian diplomat narrowly defeated Egypt’s culture minister for the leadership post at Unesco on Tuesday night, ending a bitterly fought contest in which critics of the Egyptian candidate accused him of anti-Semitism and censorship.

The victor, Irina Bokova, 57, won by a vote of 31 to 27 to be the new director-general of Unesco, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. Her opponent, Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosny, 71, had been considered the favorite to win.

A race that began with nine candidates, with Mr. Hosny in the lead, was affected by charges against him that he was in favor of burning books by Israelis and keeping restrictions on Egypt’s carefully edited press — incompatible with a United Nations agency that is supposed to defend press freedom.

An alliance of Unesco board members opposed to Mr. Hosny finally coalesced around Ms. Bokova, a former Bulgarian Foreign Minister and currently Bulgaria’s ambassador to France and Unesco, which is headquartered in Paris.

Someone from the Arab world or Eastern Europe has never run Unesco. The new director general replaces Koichiro Matsuura of Japan.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/23/world/europe/23unesco.html

[dead0man]

The UN didn't pick the Jew hater?  Weird.  (I note that the election was close)

[GMantis]

It seems that the charges of Antisemitism have been overblown and he seems to have taken on some rather progressive causes (speaking out against Hijab, wanting to restore an old synagogue).
Still, while I don't know much about Hosni, from her career in Bulgaria, I would say that she is well qualified for this role. And it's always nice (and rare) to have some positive news coverage about Bulgaria !

[Antonio the Sixth]

An heartening (though little) victory for democracy.

[Tetro Kornbluth]

The idea of the current government of Egypt having a "culture minister" is a sick joke and an oxymoron in itself. Not that I imagine that Bulgaria is greatly better...

[freek]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ivWBeREr1QQ2p0Q6QOrwehcu2K9AD9AT54MO3

[GMantis]

The idea of the current government of Egypt having a "culture minister" is a sick joke and an oxymoron in itself. Not that I imagine that Bulgaria is greatly better...

Perhaps I'm confused, but are you saying that Bulgaria is not any better than the dictatorial and unfree Egypt?

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

Heard a geopolitical expert, Bruno Tertrais, saying that this result led the Egyptian papers to title on the fact that "West don't like Islam" and so on. Cool, this in a non-free press of a Western friendly regime. This regime really suck by trying to seduce the islamist trends of its country, it has to be very happy if the boomerang doesn't come back right in his face by these same islamists. Oh, f**k...

Oh wait, the Churchill analogy comes back to my mind...

Very useful...

[Tetro Kornbluth]

The idea of the current government of Egypt having a "culture minister" is a sick joke and an oxymoron in itself. Not that I imagine that Bulgaria is greatly better...

Perhaps I'm confused, but are you saying that Bulgaria is not any better than the dictatorial and unfree Egypt?

Sorry I was referring to the politics of culture (o/c Bulgaria is superior to Egypt in many cases...). My reference was a bit obscure I admit, but Egypt has not been a state which has looked after its own culture very well... or has any intellectual respectability whatsoever.