(CNSNews.com) – An election for the top post in a key United Nations agency will go into a fourth round of voting on Monday. The four remaining candidates include a controversial Egyptian who has the backing of the Islamic, Arab and African blocs.
 
The Paris-based U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) lists promoting freedom of expression as a key mission, but Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosni has for more than 20 years been part of a government which advocacy groups say violates free speech.
 
Hosni himself last year made headlines with comments calling for the burning of any Israeli books found in a major Egyptian library. He later apologized for the remarks.
 
American taxpayers provide 22 percent of UNESCO’s regular budget of more than $600 million. UNESCO strives to promote global understanding through culture, education and science.
 
Despite unease over his candidacy, the Egyptian candidate led the original nine-strong field in the three rounds of voting by UNESCO’s 58-member executive board held since last week.
 
He has failed to achieve the required absolute majority of 30, however, an apparent indication of energetic lobbying, given that from the outset he had 23 votes in the bag – those belonging to the 20 African and Middle Eastern countries on the board, as well as three Islamic nations from other regional groups.
 
Voting is by secret ballot.
 
In round one, Hosni received just 22 votes, with a Bulgarian candidate, former foreign minister Irina Bokova, in distant second place with eight. A second round then delivered the Egyptian 23 votes, with Benita Ferrero-Waldner, an Austrian who is the outgoing European Union commissioner for external relations, running up, with nine votes.
 
During a third round on Saturday, Hosni’s total edged up to 25. He was followed by Bokova with 13, Ferrero-Waldner with 11, while fourth place went to Ecuadorian diplomat Ivonne Baki, with eight votes.
 
Ahead of Monday’s fourth round, the contest was shaken up by the withdrawal first of four candidates further down the field, from Russia, Benin, Lithuania and Tanzania. Then Ferrero-Waldner surprised many by pulling out Sunday, saying she was doing so in the “superior interest of the organization and of European unity.”
 
In implied criticism of Hosni, the Austrian foreign ministry in a statement about Ferrero-Waldner’s departure urged respect for UNESCO’s ideals.

Ferrero-Waldner did not endorse any of the remaining candidates, but her withdrawal along with that of the Lithuanian hopeful could boost the remaining European, Bokova.
 
Baki of Ecuador remains in the race, as does Mohammed Bedjaoui, a former Algerian foreign minister, who is competing despite the Arab-Islamic-African endorsement of Hosni.
 
With the numerical breakdown of the voting board, it may require either Bokova or Baki to withdraw in favor of the other if Hosni is to be deprived of his majority.
 
Nine members come from the Western group, seven from Eastern Europe, 10 from Latin America, 12 from Asia, 13 from Africa and seven from North Africa and the Middle East.
 
The outgoing UNESCO director-general, Koichiro Matsuura of Japan, ends his second and last four-year term in November.
 
The Hosni controversy stemmed from an incident in May 2008 when, asked by Egyptian lawmakers about the presence of Israeli books in a library in Alexandria, the culture minister answered, “Let’s burn these books. If there are any, I will burn them myself before you.”
 
Hosni later sought to justify the remarks, saying they should be viewed in the context of “the sufferings and injustice done to the Palestinian people.”
 
“I was expressing angry feelings at what is happening to an entire people deprived of its land and rights,” he said in a recent statement aimed at quelling the controversy. “What human conscience can be indifferent to such a tragedy?”
 
Hosni said he should be supported based in his bid for the U.N. post based on not on “one sentence” but on “twenty-seven years spent in the service of culture.”
 
The U.S. was a founding member of UNESCO, but the Reagan administration withdrew in 1984, citing mismanagement and accusing it of promoting an anti-Western agenda.
 
The Bush administration said the agency had made important reforms since Matsuura become director-general in 1999, and President Bush in September 2002 told the U.N. the U.S. would return.