Tracking the fight to head the Fund
Our poll on who you think the worst candidate nominated for head of the Fund has the favourite bringing up the rear. Lagarde recieved 33.71% of the vote with Carstens on 24.72%. The rest was split between the no-runner and Mr Early Retirement
Though the end result is by now all too clear, the Board will likely keep us waiting until June 30th before putting out an official press release announcing Lagarde as the new IMF boss.
All in all a rather malagrugrous state of affairs. I’d say!
Despite a flurry of media reports this morning, Manuel is not running to be head of the IMF. He said “My adrenaline is flowing about South Africa right now – it’s where my focus is.” Many have speculated that he had neither the backing of the South African government nor the backing of other emerging markets, so a bid for the job would have been futile.
UK newspaper the Telegraph also suggests that Grigoriy Marchenko will drop out of the race tonight. While Marchenko, in his interview with the paper, does not directly say he’ll drop out, he does speculate: “There’s a lot of information coming from different sources which is implying that there’s agreement between G8 countries about support for Madame Lagarde, and if countries which together have more than 60pc of the vote have agreed to support one candidate, then it’s more or less a done deal.” The Telegraph extrapolates from this that he will withdraw his name.
Continue reading “Candidates dropping like flies, will there be European concessions?”
The official candidates for the position of managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have now emerged, but their positions on important topics facing the Fund are not yet clear. Civil society groups set out four pre-requisites for a new head of the IMF in April, including experience running intergovernmental institutions, independence, personal characteristics, and understanding of key issues.
A test of the first three areas is possible from looking at the candidates’ background, but for the last of these, their views are not clear. The IMF still needs fundamental reform if it is to be relevant to the global economy of the 21st century and to operate in the interests of ordinary people all over the world. We believe there are 4 key areas where these candidates must answer questions and that these questions should be answered in a public debate among the candidates.
Despite two major pushes for reform in the last five years, IMF governance remains undemocratic and unaccountable with Europe still be substantially over-represented.
a. Will you strongly support the introduction of double majority decision making for all decisions at the IMF, to strengthen consensus decision making and give greater voice to small and low-income countries?
In 2009 the IMF agreed to adopt an “open, merit-based and transparent process for the selection of IMF management”, yet the current process has been criticised and neither of the two recent appointments to deputy managing director positions were done through an open, transparent and merit-based process.
b. How exactly would you reform the appointment processes for all IMF management, particularly how would you recruit deputy managing directors so that the 2009 commitments are kept?
Continue reading “Question time for candidates! Public debate needed for IMF leadership post”
imfboss has invited candidate assessments from civil society voices in the home countries of the candidates to head the IMF. Throughout the process we will be posting these here for your benefit.
By Meruert Makhmutova, Director of Public Policy Research Center, Almaty, Kazakhstan
The Governor of the Central Bank of Kazakhstan was nominated by Kazakhstan’s Prime Minister to head the International Monetary Fund at CIS Government heads meeting in Minsk. As a result Marchenko was endorsed as the single candidate from the CIS countries.
The chances of Marchenko becoming the head of IMF are around 1 per cent given the global political realities. There would be no real chance at all if the selection process was actually merit based. The above mentioned 1 per cent would only be possible if Kazakhstan negotiated intensively with other developing countries and they are able to join forces in pushing on the United States and European countries. But it seems the process for the selection of the IMF head differs from the lobbying that goes on for the chairmanship of the OSCE.
IMF Boss 