Marciulionyte withdraws candidacy for UNESCO director-general

Sep 21, 2009
TBT Staff in cooperation wtih Lithuania MFA

PARIS- On Sept 18 during the second round of the election to the post of the Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the joint candidate of the Baltic States Ambassador Ina Marciulionyte received 4 votes out of 58.

A new head of the organization was not elected at the second round either. The frontrunner of this round was Farouk Hosny of Egypt. He received 23 votes which is one vote more than during the previous round. Austria's Benita Ferrero-Waldner was given votes of 9 countries (two votes more than in the first round).

Lithuania decided to withdraw its candidate in order to ensure that a joint European Union candidate is elected to the position of UNESCO's Director-General. Currently, such a candidate is B.Ferrero-Waldner who has received the largest number of votes among candidates from the EU member states.

According to Lithuania's Minister of Foreign Affairs Vygaudas Usackas, the situation needs to be estimated realistically. Lithuania as an EU member state urges all the EU countries to join forces and to vote for the candidate from the EU.

In the opinion of the head of Lithuania's diplomacy, the participation of Ambassador Marciulionyte in the election of UNESCO's Director-General was beneficial to the country.

"I would like to thank Ambassador Marciulionyte and all the diplomats who helped in promoting the name of Lithuania among the members of UNESCO and in spreading the ideas of policy for culture heritage," said Minister Usackas.

The Bulgarian candidate Irina Bokova received 8 votes (the same number of votes as in the first round), so did Ecuador's Ivonne Baki (7 votes in the previous round). The Russian Alexander Yakovenko was given 3 votes, 4 votes less than in the first round of election. Noureini Tidjani-Serpos from Benin received 2 votes and representative of Tanzania Sospeter Muhongo received a vote of one country 's the same scores that they had during the previous round. The Algerian Mohammed Bedjaoui who has been nominated by Cambodia did not receive any votes.

The third round of election took place on 19 September.

In order to win the election of UNESCO's Director-General the candidate needs to receive at least 30 votes of the countries which currently are members of the Executive Board. There are five election rounds possible in total.  After the election at the Executive Board, the new Director-General will have to be confirmed at the General Conference which is scheduled from 6 to 23 of October.

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