Politicking steps up to replace IMF's Strauss-Kahn
Baku, May 18 (AZERTAC). The race to succeed Dominique Strauss-Kahn as head of the International Monetary Fund stepped up Tuesday along with pressure on him to resign and avoid undermining the IMF, a key force of global economic stability.
Some diplomats said a European country should no longer be guaranteed stewardship over a global economy increasingly driven by emerging powers in Asia and Latin America. The IMF board could move soon to oust Strauss-Kahn if he insists on remaining in his post while jailed on charges of trying to rape a New York City hotel maid, analysts suggested.
"He is obviously not in a position to run the IMF," Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said Tuesday in New York.
Even though Strauss-Kahn is presumed innocent, the IMF will approach this crisis as ruthlessly as a company would, said Robert Bennett, the lawyer who represented President Bill Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky affair and Paul Wolfowitz before he resigned from the World Bank, the IMF's sister institution, in 2007.
Support for Strauss-Kahn, a Frenchman, eroded Tuesday in Europe. In Brussels, Austrian Finance Minister Maria Fekter called on Strauss-Kahn to resign so he wouldn't damage the fund. Her Spanish counterpart, Elena Salgado, spoke of solidarity with the woman Strauss-Kahn is accused of assaulting.
"Considering the situation, that bail was denied, he has to figure out for himself that he is hurting the institution," Fekter said Tuesday as she arrived at a meeting of European finance ministers.
Strauss-Kahn has said nothing about his future at the IMF. He is due to appear next in court on Friday.
Among possible replacements for Strauss-Kahn are at least four fellow Europeans: French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde; the former head of the German central bank, Axel Weber; the head of Europe's bailout fund, Klaus Regling; and Peer Steinbrueck, a former German finance minister.
Candidates from elsewhere include Turkey's former finance minister, Kemal Dervis; Singapore's finance chief Tharman Shanmugaratnam; and Indian economist Montek Singh Ahluwalia.
Other possibilities include Trevor Manuel, South Africa's former finance minister; Mexico's central bank governor, Agustin Carstens; former Brazilian central bank president Arminio Fraga; and China's Min Zhu, a special adviser to Strauss-Kahn.
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