PARIS: World envoys to the United Nations cultural organization UNESCO gave 22 out of 57 votes to Culture Minister Farouk Hosni Thursday in his bid to be elected the new director general, despite widespread charges of anti-Semitism against him.
Hosni, who has been in office for 22 years, is seen as best placed among nine candidates to take over from Japan’s Koichiro Matsuura as director general of the UN’s culture and education agency.
Hosni won 22 votes, falling short of the 30 needed to win election, UNESCO officials said.
He failed to garner enough votes in the first round of voting and a second ballot was scheduled for Friday.
“No candidate garnered the majority of votes required under the rules to win election, said Benin’s ambassador Olabiyi Babalola Joseph Yai, the head of UNESCO’s 58-nation executive council which elects the new director.
“We will pursue the election with a second round tomorrow, he said.
The 71-year-old minister nevertheless held a comfortable lead over three other rivals: Bulgarian ex-foreign minister Irina Bokova, who won eight votes, European Commissioner for External Relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner, who picked up seven votes as did Ecuador’s Ivonne Baki.
Hosni is seeking to become the first representative from the Arab world to head UNESCO, the UN agency mandated to promote global understanding through culture, education and science.
Supporters say the Egyptian’s election would send a positive signal from the West to the Muslim world, but the race has been clouded by charges that anti-Israel comments made last year make him unfit for the role.
Hosni’s detractors include Auschwitz survivor and Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel, who says his appointment would “shame the global community, as well as the Nazi-hunting Simon Wiesenthal Centre and US and French intellectuals.
In his long career, Hosni was sometimes accused of promoting anti-Semitism, in particular when he told the Egyptian parliament in May last year: “I’d burn Israeli books myself if I found any in libraries in Egypt.
Fighting off the charges ahead of the first round of voting, Hosni insisted his comment was part of an angry exchange with hardliners from the Muslim Brotherhood and was taken out of context.
He told France 24 television he had been referring only to “Israeli books that insult Islam, which he was accused of tolerating in Egypt’s libraries.
“I restored all the synagogues [in Egypt]. Why would I do that if I was an anti-Semite? he asked, holding up as proof of his good faith the fact he attended a Holocaust memorial ceremony earlier this year.
A recent article in the prestigious American magazine Foreign Policy described Hosni’s bid as “scandalous and accused him of echoing the “rampant Judeophobia of Egyptian intellectual circles.
French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy launched a last-ditch assault to bar the road to the Egyptian candidate, denouncing his sickening stance towards Jews and a track record of censorship, including in the name of Islam.
Are we about to hand the keys of the world s cultural institution to a man who, when he hears the word culture, pulls out his scissors or his cigarette lighter, he charged in an opinion piece on news website Le Point.
France must remain officially neutral as it is UNESCO s host country, but officials have said privately Paris favors Hosni for the job.
The Elysee argues that Hosni has acknowledged the comments were a mistake, while noting that neither Israel nor the United States have stood up to oppose his candidacy.
He also picked up unexpected support earlier this month from France s most famous Nazi-hunter, 73-year-old Serge Klarsfeld, who said Hosni had apologized for his book-burning remarks and taken a strong stance against Holocaust denial.
The appointment is to be endorsed in October by the 193-member assembly of UNESCO.
