India's IMF director on Thursday said the institution needs to revamp how it chooses it managing director, after decades of as "consensus" that let Europeans monopolise the top position. Hours after the resignation of International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn of France to fight sexual assault charges in New York, Arvind Virmani said the IMF board needs to openly elect the head rather than choose via back-room negotiations.
"The credibility of a candidate depends on the credibility of the process," he told AFP. "There are a lot of people who feel that the process has not been credible... that certain countries, certain nationalities were virtually pre-selected."
Virmani stressed that it was his own view, and not that of the countries he represents on the 24-member executive board - India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Bhutan. But in the past two days there have been numerous calls from emerging economies for a more open process and an IMF chief from the developing world.
"The era is over in which it may have been even remotely appropriate to reserve that important post for a European national," Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega said. The IMF's executive board normally selects a new managing director from nominees by consensus, though it can do it by vote.
In practice, by an informal pact with the US, it has always led to a European managing director, while an American heads the World Bank. But Virmani says that leaves other hopeful nominees facing an embarrassing, unexplained rejection. "We are never told" why someone is rejected, he said.
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