By Mariam Al-Zanki
PARIS, Oct 13 (KUNA) -- UNESCO is scheduled to elect a new chief in final voting on Friday to secure successor to the Polish chief Irina Bokova whose four-year term at the helm of the international cultural agency has expired.
French ex-culture minister Audrey Azoulay and Egyptian rights activist Moushira Khattab contend to the second rank. They had garnered in previous voting 18 votes each, as compared to 22 for the Qatari nominee, the former culture minister Hamad bin Abdoulaziz Al-Kawari. Therefore, it will be either the French or the Egyptian who will compete with the Qatari in the final balloting tonight.
According to UNESCO's bylaws, if two contenders equalize in the fourth round, a re-voting is held where the winner needs 30 votes out of 58 member states in the executive board. If they take equal numbers of votes, a draw is held.
The voting is held in the shadow of an announcement by the United States of America that it will withdraw from the organization, drawing expressions of concern from cultural stakeholders.
Meanwhile, the State of Kuwait Delegate to UNESCO, Dr. Meshaal Hayat, said in a statement to Kuwait News Agency (KUNA), "We hope that an Arab candidate win for no Arab has ever occupied that post since the organization was established in 1945." He lauded the Egyptian and Qatari nominees, underlining their administrative expertise. Two candidates representing Lebanon and Iraq had withdrawn from the race, thus paving the way for their Arab colleagues to try winning the key position.
Shortly after Washington declared its plan to quit the UNESCO, effective December 31, 2018, Israel announced it would follow suit, accusing the organization of taking anti-Semitic attitudes.
Washington first pulled out of the UNESCO in 1984 over alleged financial mismanagement and anti-US bias. It returned to the organization in 2002, but relations in 2011 relations soured again after UNESCO admitted Palestine as a full member, prompting the US to cut its funding to the organization. (end) mjz.rk