Egypt's Khattab garners 11 votes at UNESCO's first round

CAIRO – 9 October 2017: The first of four rounds of the UNESCO voting for a new director-general resulted in 11 votes for Egypt's Moushira Khattab, 19 for Qatar's Hamad Abdul Aziz al-Kawari, and 13 for France's Audrey Azoulay.

Lebanese candidate Vera El Khoury had six voted, Chinese candidate Qian Tang received five votes, while Pham Sanh Chau of Vietnam and Polad Bülbüloglu of Azerbaijan gained two votes each.

In the morning, the Executive Board – comprising 58 member states of the board having the right to vote – will hold a meeting to discuss the agenda before the secret ballot starts in the evening.

The winning candidate must obtain 30 votes, which is unlikely in the first round but possible by the fifth round, which is to be held on Friday. The candidates who amassed the highest number of votes in the fourth round will compete in the fifth.

The procedure of the nomination of the director-general of UNESCO goes as follows:
one of the candidates will be chosen via secret ballot in a vote that will be held during the board’s 202nd session in October 2017. His/her name will then be announced by the board’s chairman in the General Conference during its 39th session in November 2017.

Delegates to the General Conference “shall consider this nomination and then elect, by secret ballot, the person proposed by the Executive Board,” according to UNESCO’s website.