EMERGING markets talked up their desire to break
Washington's hold on the top World Bank job on Thursday after Robert Zoellick
announced he would step down, yet they showed little inclination to band
together to force change.
Much like in 2011, when Dominique Strauss-Kahn resigned as
managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), officials from
countries such as Brazil and the Philippines said it was time to break the
decades-old pattern of putting an American in charge of the World Bank and a
European atop the IMF.
"It is not so much the identity of Mr Zoellick's replacement
that concerns us but rather the process in which his successor is
selected," said Philippines Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima.
"We are confident that given the increasing importance
of emerging markets in the global economy, outdated practices of the past will
be revisited," he said.
However, there was not much evidence that emerging markets
could field a candidate and build a coalition large enough to challenge the
United States.
Zoellick will leave his post in June, when his term ends. US
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Wednesday that Washington would put
forward a candidate "in the coming weeks" and called for an open
process to fill the job.
An emerging market official told Reuters there was an effort
to pull together a campaign behind a non-US candidate, but there was little
enthusiasm because most countries were preoccupied with domestic issues,
including impending leadership changes and battling the global downturn. The
official declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Indeed, the two people most often mentioned are both
American: former US Treasury secretary Lawrence Summers and US Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton. The State Department said Clinton would not be taking
the job.
If an emerging market rival does materialise, it may be
someone from the same shortlist of names circulating last year after
Strauss-Kahn's resignation. South Africa's Trevor Manuel and Mexico's Agustin
Carstens were among those mentioned.
Carstens, who heads up Mexico's central bank, ruled himself
out on Wednesday. He launched an unsuccessful bid against Christine Lagarde in
2011 for the top IMF role.
"I have no plans to launch a campaign for that (World
Bank) job," Carstens said.
Who has the power?
Unlike last year, when Strauss-Kahn abruptly resigned amid
charges - later dropped - that he had assaulted a hotel maid, Zoellick's
departure was widely expected. That should have given emerging markets ample
opportunity to plan for a rival bid to lead the lending institution.
The trouble is, forging consensus from such a disparate
collection of countries is notoriously difficult.
Groupings such as the Brics - Brazil, Russia, India, China
and South Africa - have struggled to find much common ground on global
development issues, making it hard for them to rally around a single candidate.
Brics leaders are scheduled to meet in New Delhi in late
March, and could conceivably put forward a candidate then. But if the United
States has already presented its nominee by then, it may put any Brics-backed
candidate at a disadvantage.
The World Bank has taken steps to enhance emerging markets'
power and influence, commensurate with their growing economic clout - a move
that helps blunt criticism that it is too dominated by Western powers.
It endorsed a plan in 2010 that gave more voting power to
developing countries, vaulting China to the No 3 spot behind the United States
and Japan.
Its chief economist is from China, and two of the three
managing directors are from emerging markets: Indonesia and Egypt. One of those
managing directors is former Indonesian finance minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati,
who could be another potential emerging markets candidate.
Under voting reforms approved in 2010, developing countries
will hold 47.2% of World Bank voting power, a 3.1 percentage point increase
from the previous tally.
But the five Brics countries currently hold just 11.3% of
the voting power, World Bank data show, not enough to stand up to the United
States' 16%.
China, by far the largest of the Brics, had little to say on
the succession question.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Liu Weimin said only
that the next World Bank president should be chosen "based on the
principles of openness, competitiveness and merit". That was similar to
what China said during the IMF nominating process last year.
The Bretton Woods Project, an IMF and World Bank watchdog,
sent a letter to World Bank governors arguing that the next president should
have to secure votes from a majority of member countries, not just a majority
of the total votes, which skews the balance of power towards large advanced
economies.
"As the bank only operates in developing countries, and
has most impact in low-income countries, any candidate that was not supported
by these countries would seriously lack legitimacy," it wrote in the
letter, dated February 15.
- Reuters