guardian.co.uk,
Dominic Rushe in New York, Heather Stewart and Monica Mark in Lagos, Monday 16
April 2012
 |
| President Barack Obama had backed Jim Yong Kim, to become president of the World Bank. Photograph Andrew Harrer/ EPA |
The World Bank named Korean-born doctor Jim Yong Kim as its new president today amid
criticism that the role had once more gone to a US-nominated candidate.
The
52-year-old president of Ivy League Dartmouth College beat Nigerian finance
minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala to the post, the first time in the World Bank's
history that the US candidate has faced a serious challenge.
Kim had
been widely expected to clinch the job, as he had the backing of the US,
Europe, Japan and Canada, which between them command a majority of votes among
the World Bank's executive directors. But sources close to the process claimed
there had been 'frantic arm-twisting' in a bid to achieve unanimity.
Insiders
also claimed that Okonjo-Iweala was urged to stand down on Sunday night after
it emerged that she could muster 19% of the votes, because senior Bank
decision-makers felt it would expose divisions among its member states.
Instead, the Nigerian finance minister insisted on remaining in the race.
Before the
announcement on Monday Okonjo-Iweala said: "You know this thing is not
really being decided on merit."
Brazilian
and South African government officials reiterated their support for her on
Monday – potentially representing around 5% of the votes at the meeting. It is
understood that there was no formal vote.
Kim, born
in Seoul, South Korea, was nominated by Barack Obama in March to replace
current president Robert Zoellick. The US president's choice of a public health
expert was a surprise: candidates nominated to run the bank usually come from
the financial world.
The World
Bank presidency has gone to a US candidate since the organisation was founded
at the Bretton Woods conference at the close of the second world war. The
International Monetary Fund (IMF), its sister organisation, has always been run
by a European.
The US
backed France's Christine Lagarde's nomination to the top role at the IMF last
year after the shock resignation of Dominique Strauss Kahn. In return Kim
received Europe's backing for the World Bank job.
In recent
years the organisations have faced growing criticism over their US/European
duopoly.
Before Kim
was confirmed as bank president, the South African finance minister, Pravin
Gordhan, said there was a need to "look beyond the verbiage of democracy
and the claims to democratic process and ask whether in substantive terms the institution
has met the democratic test".
In her
comments before the announcement, Okonjo-Iweala said: "It is voting with
political weight and shares, and therefore the United States will get it."
She said
that although she expected her challenge to the US's nomination to fail, the
process "will never ever be the same again … so we have won a big victory.
Who gets to run the World Bank – we have shown we can contest this thing and
Africa can produce people capable of running the entire architecture," she
said.
A third
candidate, Colombia's former finance minister Jose Antonio Ocampo, had pulled
out of the race on Friday, calling the selection process a
"political-oriented exercise".
Peter
Chowla, co-ordinator of the London-based NGO the Bretton Woods Project, said
the news meant the "stitch-up between the US and Europe will live on into
a seventh decade despite the rise of new economic powers like India, China and
Brazil".
He added:
"European and other rich world leaders chose political convenience over a
truly competitive process that would look at the candidates on the basis of
their merits and not their nationalities. This will further erode the Bank's
legitimacy unless Kim starts listening closely to developing countries and
critics of the World Bank, and begins a process of fundamental reform."
Kim, 52, is
a leading figure in global health and a former director of the HIV and Aids
department at the World Health Organisation. He moved with his family to the US
at the age of five.
In a
statement the World Bank said: "We, the executive directors, wish to
express our deep appreciation to all the nominees, Jim Yong Kim, José Antonio
Ocampo and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. The final nominees received support from
different member countries, which reflected the high calibre of the
candidates."
Professor
Simon Evenett of the University of St Gallen, Switzerland, and former World
Bank official said Kim's appointment was inevitable.
"The
Obama administration would almost certainly have withheld support for Lagarde's
appointment to the IMF if European nations had not agreed in advance to support
whomever was Washington's candidate for the World Bank," he said.
"There
was never really a contest. Some developing countries probably figured this out
and put up a strong candidate to embarrass the west, hoping that this will lead
to a more open process in the future. Don't bet on that.
"The
west won't give up its hold over these institutions until they need something from
the emerging markets."
Folarin
Gbadebo-Smith, a director at Nigeria's respected Centre for Policy
Alternatives, said a lack of political instinct may have damaged
Okonjo-Iweala's chances.
"People
don't like to be caught unawares," he said. "Where the US has such a
major stake, this is something that clearly should have to be negotiated behind
closed doors first. That is the golden rule in the boardroom or in
politics.".
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