Bulgarian Wins UNESCO Race

Source: Sofia Echo

Bokova defeated Egyptian culture minister Farouk Hosni in the fifth round, gathering 31 votes in favour against Hosni's 27 in the Unesco council. Ranked as an outsider at the start of the race, Bokova's nomination gained momentum over the previous rounds of voting, pulling ahead of  European External Relations Commissioner and former Austrian foreign minister Benita Ferrero-Waldner.

In the end, Hosni's bid was hindered by his anti-Semitic remarks that he made in 2008 and accusations of heavy-handed lobbying against Hosni were bandied about in Unesco's headquarters in Paris, Reuters said.

Bokova, 57, attended the English-Language School in Sofia, the Moscow State Institute of International Relations and the University of Maryland school of public affairs. A former MP and interim foreign minister under the troubled socialist government of Zhan Videnov, her priorities as head of Unesco would be "Africa’s development needs, especially in education, and those of the Small Island Developing States as the most crisis-stricken countries in the world," according to her campaign website.