Paris - Bulgarian diplomat Irina Bokova late Tuesday became the first woman elected to be director-general of UNESCO, the Paris- based scientific and cultural organization said. The 57-year-old Bokova, who was considered a long shot when voting began last week, received 31 votes from the 58-member UNESCO executive board and no doubt benefited from a backlash against her opponent, controversial Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosny.
The Bulgarian former foreign minister must now be confirmed as successor to Koichiro Matsuura at a UNESCO General Assembly, scheduled for October 15. That step is little more than a formality, as no candidate nominated by the executive board has ever been rejected.
When the voting began, nine candidates stood for the post including Austrian former foreign minister Benita Ferrero-Waldner, who had been regarded as Hosny's strongest rival.
Originally regarded as the favourite to win the vote, Hosny was criticized as being anti-Semitic because he had said last year that he would personally burn any Israeli book found in the library at Alexandria. In 2001, he described Israeli culture as "aggressive, racist, pretentious."
Hosny was criticized for having done nothing to stop censorship in Egypt during his 22 years as culture minister.
Although he publicly apologized for his anti-Israeli statements, many non-governmental organizations and, according to diplomats, the US government conducted a fierce campaign against his candidacy.
Hosny's candidacy made the vote the most visible and contentious in UNESCO's history, and inspired Nobel Peace Prize-winner Elie Wiesel and two French intellectuals to publish an angry op-ed piece in the French daily Le Monde.
"Farouk Hosny is not worthy of the role; Farouk Hosny is the opposite of a man of peace, dialogue and culture; Farouk Hosny is a dangerous man," they wrote in May.
But in the same month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government unexpectedly halted its open opposition to Hosny's candidacy. Reportedly, Netanyahu gave this commitment to Egyptian President Hosny Mubarak when they met in May, in exchange for unspecified policy commitments from Cairo.
Late Tuesday in Jerusalem, an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman praised Bokova's election and voiced hopes for improved future cooperation between Israel and UNESCO.
Bokova, a mother of two grown children, currently serves as Bulgarian ambassador to France and Monaco. She has been a member of the UNESCO executive board since 2007.
Her surprising victory in the last round of the five-round voting process avoided a potentially embarrassing situation for UNESCO.
If the two candidates had received 29 votes each, as they did in Monday's fourth round, the winner would have been decided by a drawing of lots. However, that might have moved the General Assembly to reject either winner, UNESCO sources said.
