Who will be the next World Bank president?
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In an email sent to both his board and news agency Reuters, current Bank president James Wolfensohn said he will retire on 31 May after 10 years in the post. In the note addressed to the dean of the board, Yahya Al-Yahya of Saudi Arabia, Wolfensohn said: “I would like to retire at the end of my term and would suggest the board seek a new president for the institution as I would not wish to be considered for a third term.”
There were rumours that Wolfensohn had been lobbying hard for a third term. Washington insiders believe that he was unable to win over the support of the Bush administration coming on the heels of his outspoken comments on US military expenditures in Iraq.
By informal agreement since the establishment of the World Bank in 1944, the US administration selects the president of the Bank, while a European candidate is given the top job at the IMF. Normally the lead on the decision would be taken by the undersecretary for international affairs at the Treasury. However, with the current undersecretary in the list of rumoured candidates, the decision may fall to the council of economic advisors. The list of rumoured candidates includes:
- Colin Powell – the outgoing secretary of state said in early January that he would not accept the job. Rumours persist especially with high profile appearances in Asia for tsunami relief efforts.
- Robert Zoellick – the US trade representative was the lead candidate until a 6 January Wall Street Journal article which said that he was expected to be named as deputy to incoming secretary of state Condoleeza Rice.
- John Taylor – the undersecretary of the treasury for international affairs is now considered the lead candidate by many, though his outspoken views on IFI reform and support for ending concessional lending may raise Europe’s ire. Taylor may also be chosen to replace Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan.
- Other rumoured candidates include: Randall Tobias, the US global AIDS coordinator; Christine Todd Whitman, the former director of the Environmental Protection Agency; Carla Hills, the elder Bush’s trade representative; Stanley Fischer, ex-deputy managing director at the IMF; Anne Kreuger, current deputy managing director at the Fund; Jack Hennessy, ex-Credit Suisse First Boston CEO; Peter McPherson, the former head of Michigan State University who served as Bush’s point person on rebuilding Iraq’s financial system; and finally, long odds are on Bill Clinton. A website has been established to share the latest tips on who’s hot and who’s not.
Civil society groups will be pressing for the selection process to be transparent and meritocratic. After the surprise resignation of former IMF managing director Horst Koehler in March, the procedure for the selection of the heads of both the Fund and the Bank has been severely criticised for its lack of transparency and democracy by developing countries, senior management of the institutions, and NGOs worldwide.
Disappointment was widespread that the Fund failed to end the stitch-up that allows Europe to nominate the Fund’s head. While some commentators pointed to the nomination of Egyptian Mohammed El-Erian and his official interview with the board as a sign of increased openness, the usefulness of this precedent was put in perspective by an IMF executive director: “It was not a total success in that the decision as to who is going to get the job had already been made.”
