BRIC Support For New IMF Chief
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French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde received support from the four major emerging economies (Brazil, Russia, India and China) as she was officially elected to become the new IMF Managing Director for a five-year term beginning on July 5, 2011.
While Brazil, Russia and China had previously already expressed their support for Lagarde, India chose to wait for the official IMF announcement of Lagarde’s appointment before backing the French Finance Minister for the job.
French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde received support from the four major emerging economies (Brazil, Russia, India and China) as she was officially elected to become the new IMF Managing Director for a five-year term beginning on July 5, 2011.
While Brazil, Russia and China had previously already expressed their support for Lagarde, India chose to wait for the official IMF announcement of Lagarde’s appointment before backing the French Finance Minister for the job.
Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee told Reuters yesterday that he wanted to ensure that there was a consensus around the appointment before backing any candidate for the post.
“We knew both of them, but we wanted to be part of the consensus, and the consensus emerged … around Christine Lagarde. So naturally we became a part of it.”
Although Lagarde was the clear favourite to replace Dominique-Strauss Kahn as the new IMF Managing Director, there had been some rumblings over selecting an IMF Managing Director from an emerging economy instead, rather than one from Europe.
Related: IMF Meeting Reveals Shift in Power to Asia from “West”
Yet as Lagarde proceeded on a worldwide campaign to garner support for her candidacy, it became rather obvious on whom the next IMF Managing Director would ultimately be.
Lagarde has pledged to increase the voting power of emerging economies in the IMF as she held off the challenge from Mexico’s central bank governor, Agustin Carstens.
Russian Finance Minister Alexi Kudrin told reporters on Tuesday that Lagarde’s appointment would be able to “secure reform of the IMF in the interests of developing markets.“
Brazil’s Finance Minister Guido Mantega also extolled Lagarde’s experience and credentials while expressing certainty that under Lagarde, there would be “increasing representation among emerging economies.”
The US, which holds the most voting power at the IMF, chose to wait until the final stage of the process before declaring its support for Lagarde
“If China, Brazil, India and others had thrown their weight behind Carstens, then the US would have been in a very difficult situation,” said Arvind Subramanian, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute and the Center for Global Development think tanks in Washington.
Story from Reuters
