Lagarde in lead as Manuel opts out

AFRICA backs French finance minister Christine Lagarde as next head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), her Republic of Congo counterpart Matata Mapon said at a meeting of the African Development Bank on Friday.

“We are encouraged by your vi-sion of the IMF in the world,” he told Lagarde, who had attended the meeting in Lisbon to lobby for African support. Mapon, speaking on behalf of African finance ministers, said her candidacy met the requirements and he was “reassured” that Lagarde would be “benevolent” towards Africa if she is appointed.

“We wish you very good luck,” he said. Lagarde was the leading candidate to be the next managing director of the IMF as nominations closed on Friday for a successor to Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who resigned after being charged with the attempted rape of a New York hotel maid.

Earlier Trevor Manuel said he was not running for the post. “It is important to understand that decisions take place in the context of world politics. Against that backdrop, I have decided not to avail myself,” Manuel, a respected former finance minister, told a news conference. Manuel said it would be unfortunate if the next IMF head was from Europe. “It would be most unfortunate if we end up with a European who is bound by the EU” he said. More could have been done to per¬suade Europeans that the next IMF chief should come from an emerging country, Manuel said.

“I think a lot more could be done, a lot more should have been done. A lot more should have been done to persuade Europeans that this birthright is not a birthright that should find resonance in an insti¬tution as important as the IMF,” Manuel said. Manuel’s ruling himself out of the race makes Lagarde an even firmer favourite, although the threat of a judicial inquiry remains. Emerging market powers like Russia, India and China have declared they want an end to Europe’s grip on the top job at the international lender, calling time on a pact that puts the IMF in European hands and the World Bank under American leadership.

The United States and Europe hold 48% of votes at the IMF, emerg¬ing nations just 12%. Manuel, who handled South Africa’s economy deftly for a decade, has long been touted as an ideal developing world candidate and many had seen him winning more support than the only other declared rival to Lagarde, Mexican Central Bank chief Agustin Carstens, whose policy views are seen as too conservative by many of his emerging market peers.

- Nampa/AFP/Reuters/Sapa