9/22/09

Bokova Elected


The UNESCO website has confirmed that Irina Bokova has won the Executive Board election to be Director General of UNESCO.


I have three independent unofficial reports from reliable sources that Irina Bokova received 31 votes to 27 votes for Farouk Hosny in the fifth round of voting for the position of UNESCO Director General. Having received the majority of votes from the 58 members of the Executive Board, her name will be forwarded to the General Conference.

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4 comments:

  1. I want to post a portion of a comment from an anonymous correspondent:

    "The truth will out about Farouk Hosny in due course. He has won friends and admirers across all the regions for his dignity in defeat and his courage and resilience in the face of one of the most disgusting and unwarranted campaigns of personal vilification ever witnessed. His loss is surely Unesco's loss and the international community's loss. A man of dialogue, tolerance and dignity whose name and reputation have been dragged through the mud by people who have never met him or who have relied on outrageous distortions from people who are not fit to share the same room with him. But his sin was to be an Arab and a Muslim who stood up for an occupied fraternal people - and if secular, enlightened, Muslim Egyptian Arabs like Farouk Hosny are to be vilified in this way, then all Arabs will draw the obvious conclusions - if they hadn't already."

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  2. As far as I could see from their resumes, each of the nine candidates for the position of Director General of UNESCO had enjoyed a long, successful career. Each was worthy of respect.

    There is little alternative if one wants civil society to participate in the selection of the head of UNESCO other than to study the records of the candidates and where possible to study the record of their statements. This, for most of us has to be done at a distance, and depending on the working press for interviews and data mining.

    That was done for Minister Hosny, and I wish thet it had been done more thoroughly for some of the other candidates.

    Eight of the nine candidates had to lose. I would note that European candidates have also claimed that they lost because they were European. I have had the pleasure of working with very competent Egyptians, and indeed I had hoped that the candidates might include Ismael Serageldin and/or the Jordanian Minister of Education who has an outstanding reputation.

    In any case, I suggest now is the time to heal sore feelings from the campaign and join together to work for the improvement of UNESCO and the accomplishment of its important mission.

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  3. Anonymous9/23/2009

    ...healing "sore feelings" with a rather inadequate band-aid, judging by this:

    http://www.france24.com/en/20090923-egypt--faruq-hosni-bokova-unesco-elections

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  4. Anonymous9/26/2009

    Parler d'un 'Lobby juif' actif contre Hosni : cela ne me choque pas du tout !"
    Words of extraordinary insight from Serge Klarsfeld yet again. This interview should be translated and broadcast to every corner of the world. What a shame his wise words were drowned out by the loudmouths in the lobbies to whom he refers.

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