EXCLUSIVE: France correlates with Qatar against Egypt's candidate ahead of UNESCO's run-off

CAIRO – 12 October 2017: Reliable sources have unveiled to Egypt Today some French endeavors to communicate with the Qatari delegation to coordinate before the 5th voting round of UNESCO’s director-general post.

Egyptian candidate Moushira Khattab obtained 18 votes in the fourth round on Thursday, to be equaled with the French candidate, while Qatar’s Hamad bin Abdulaziz Al-Kawari received 22 votes, according to Egypt Today’s reporter in Paris.

Earlier on Thursday, Lebanese UNESCO director-general candidate, Vera El-Khoury, announced her withdrawal from the race in favor of the Egyptian candidate, granting her four votes in addition to five votes garnered by Chinese candidate Qian Tang after announcing his withdrawal in favor of Khattab as well.

Qian Tang has been the Assistant-Director General for Education at UNESCO since April 2010.

Khattab and France’s Audrey Azoulay will compete in the upcoming run-off election tomorrow; the winner will be the rival against Qatar’s Kawari.

Moreover, some behind-the-scene actions were

traced

by sources in Paris about a secret meeting between Kawari and Azoulay in the Qatari candidate’s candidacy room no. S. 375.

According to observers and political experts, these backstage actions indicate suspicions roaming around the kind of deal that Qatar and France agreed upon; aims for such deal are seen as either to force Egypt to withdraw in the last round for France, or to limit the competition between Qatar and France; leading to France winning the post.

Additional reporting by Mohamed Zain