Category Archives: Candidates

What are the odds? And where are the Chinese?

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We’ve been waiting with bated breath for the odds makers to get active. After all, free-market thinkers tell us that the market always has the best outcomes and sets the right prices. So surely speculation on this blog, and elsewhere in the media, will be wrong and the market will be right. Finally, yesterday, Paddy Power, an Irish bookmaker (betting site), answered the call. Of course they weren’t the only ones; John Cassidy of the New Yorker made up his own odds last weekend. But Paddy Power, with odds set by the frequency of bets, should give us the pulse of the market. Will they be right?

A review of the odds as of 21 Feb:

Larry Summers  4/11
Susan Rice  9/2
Hillary Clinton  9/2
Kemal Dervis  9/1
Tim Geithner  9/1
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala  20/1
Trevor Manuel  20/1
Lula da Silva  20/1
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Calls for developing country candidates growing stronger

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With over 2,200 votes on the worldbankpresident.org poll within less than a week of its launch, the demand for developing world candidates has perhaps never been stronger.

Devesh Kapur, who co-authored the official history of the World Bank, calls the nomination process “dreadfully antiquated” in an article for the New Europe Post Online, arguing that the Bank in reality has little choice but to look to the growing emerging-market economies, rather than the indebted West, for resources. But they would then “rightly demand a greater voice in running the Bank”. Kapur lists Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva, Ernest Zedillo of Mexico and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala of Nigeria, to name a few, as favoured developing country candidates. But he also doesn’t rule out Hilary Clinton as a credible candidate.

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Candidates, nationalities and some misunderstandings

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Timothy Geithner said yesterday that Washington would put forward a candidate “in the coming weeks”. But with Hillary Clinton seemingly ruling herself out of the race there are more questions than answers on who will be Obama’s candidate.

Larry Summers was together with Hillary Clinton the most mentioned contender, but selecting someone who proposed dumping toxic waste in poor countries does not seem to help the purpose of improving the Bank’s legitimacy in the developing world. Unless Obama wants to ignore this detail the two initial contenders for the Bank’s leadership would be ruled out even before the selection process starts. Continue reading →

With the Eurozone in a mess, Obama has the political space for a “radical” stand

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Robert Zoellick, the only neo-con who survived the Bush era because he left in time , has just announced that he will step down from the top job in the World Bank, and not look for a new term in 1818 H street in Washington.

This move, already in the air given the ambition of the democrats not to leave a Republican-appointee in place for a second term at the World Bank, renews again the well known saga about the appointment of next Bank president: again an American politician or banker? Or for the first time ever since Bretton Woods in 1944 will a non-American citizen be allowed to head the institution?

Despite the whole debate and new commitment to a procedure for a transparent and merit-based selection process to find the best candidate for the top job of the IMF, the Europeans gave a bad example in 2011 by forcing through Madame Lagarde at a time of profound crisis in “old Europe”. Hence the need for European governments to be sure that the IMF will intervene in case of a show down of the Eurozone. This is quite understandable for a bunch of countries who are not able even to decide among themselves about how to help each other out of the crisis. Continue reading →

Poll: who should be the next World Bank president?

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The US has monopolised the Bank presidency since 1944, but leadership selection at the International Financial Institutions is becoming increasingly contested. There have been repeated promises by the Bank to open up the process and select candidates based on merit, in a fair and transparent way. As developing countries become increasingly confident and assertive this could be the year that sees the emergence of a real challenge against the US hold over the position.

But who would the credible candidates be?  Below are nine heavy-weight possible candidates from developing countries. Who do you think would be the best for the job?

Sorry, there are no polls available at the moment.

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