Mutiny at the IMF

Power, including the power to appoint, is never given: it must be taken, and now it can be

The Europeans are, once again, circling to nominate one of their own as head of the IMF. They are doing so despite their solemn undertaking given during the sex-scandal-European-IMF-succession in 2011 to stop doing so. Promises promises.

The Trump administration—having already got its end of the bargain with European consent for the all-too-evidently unsuitable Mr. Malpass as President of the World Bank, and at best disinterested in International Organizations—is set to let the Europeans have their way at the IMF yet again.

The European short-list, comprising the usual crop of second-tier politicians, is being drawn up in great haste to pre-empt any head of steam building up in protest. The self-declared-and-so-called-great-and-good friends-of-the-IMF that recently met at the Paris conference on Bretton Woods at 75 have circulated their way around this stench. And the broader world looks on, unable either to coalesce around an alternative candidate or to outvote the US and the Europeans.

So is it all a done deal, even though this practice would rightly be condemned in no uncertain terms by the IMF itself as corruption and tribalism were it to be conducted for senior appointments by any African government.

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