Farouk Hosny - UNESCO Candidacy

UNESCO Candidacy

On July 30, 2007, Egypt nominated Hosny to succeed Koichiro Matsuura as Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and began a campaign to have him elected to the position. No Arab had previously held the position. Hosni was regarded as certain to win the September 2009 election, but his May 2008 pledge to burn Israel books in Egyptian libraries sparked doubts about his suitability for the position and strengthened opposition to his candidacy. Three Jewish intellectuals and activists—Bernard-Henri Lévy, Claude Lanzmann, and Elie Wiesel—led a campaign to oppose Hosny's election. In a May 2009 open letter to the international community, the three figures decried that Hosny's victory "would be an obvious provocation so transparently contrary to the proclaimed ideals of the UN that UNESCO would not recover." They implored, "We must, without delay, appeal to everyone's conscience to keep UNESCO from falling into the hands of a man who, when he hears the word 'culture,' responds with a book burning." On censorship grounds, Reporters Without Borders also opposed Hosny, stating, "This minister of Hosni Mubarak has been one of the main actors of censorship in Egypt, unfailingly trying to control press freedom as well as citizens' freedom of information."

Despite the opposition, Hosny was still expected to win by a large margin, receiving pledges of support from the Arab League, the Organization of African Unity and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference. Months prior to the UNESCO election, the Israeli government ceased opposition to Hosni's candidacy following a May 2009 meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Mubarak. In the West, Mubarak's allies were publicly neutral but behind the scenes worked to diminish Hosni's support.

On September 22, 2009, Hosny lost the UNESCO election in a stunning upset in the fifth and final round of voting to Bulgaria's Irina Bokova, who received 31 votes to Hosni's 27. In the fourth round of voting, the two candidates were tied at 29 votes each. Hosny blamed his defeat on "Zionist pressures" as well as a conspiracy by "a group of the world's Jews who had a major influence in the elections..." He also attacked the US Ambassador at UNESCO, David Killion, for derailing his election and stated, "The north always has to control the south."