REUTERS
ANALYSIS-Wolfowitz issue highlights bank selection process
01 May 2007 15:08:03 GMT
Source: Reuters
By Glenn Somerville
WASHINGTON, May 1 (Reuters) - Paul Wolfowitz's struggle to remain World Bank
president has thrown a harsh spotlight on a 60-year-old convention of having only
Americans head the global lender and may speed changes in the selection process.
The former deputy U.S. defense chief had numerous critics when the Bush administration
proposed in 2005 that he take the helm at the poverty-fighting World Bank, primarily
because he was a key architect of the policy that led to war with Iraq.
His controversial past made him a unique lightning-rod for dissent over an informal pact
that lets the United States pick the leader of the World Bank, while Europe's nominee
leads its sister global institution, the International Monetary Fund.
Wolfowitz complained on Monday that he is the victim of an unjustified "smear
campaign" for how he handled a pay raise and promotion for a bank-employed girlfriend,
and supporters claim European opponents are orchestrating a bid to unseat him.
The Wall Street Journal editorialized that Wolfowitz's treatment "fits the pattern of what
is ever more clearly a Euro-railroad job," noting the World Bank panel looking into the
promotion is headed by a Dutch government representative.
EUROPEANS CRITICAL
"Evidently the Europeans are the ones who most clearly want Paul Wolfowitz to resign,"
said Nancy Birdsall, president of the Washington-based Center for Global Development.
"But to use the expression that it is European-orchestrated seems to imply that there is
something more to it than there is ... and I don't think it goes back to Iraq."
Wolfowitz on Monday implied he might consider quitting at some point, but only if
cleared of any wrongdoing in how he handled his girlfriend's promotion and pay raise.
Birdsall and others are looking past Wolfowitz's tenure, whether abbreviated by
resignation or not, toward the bank's future and are questioning whether the practice of
having an American head it, as has been the case since 1946, makes sense.
"In today's world, the old side agreement should be jettisoned and replaced with selection
procedures that reflect two key principles: transparency of process and competence of
prospective leadership," Brookings Institution senior fellow Ralph Bryant wrote on
Monday.
"If the world community acts sensibly, the choice will not be, as in the past, determined
by the U.S. government alone," Bryant said of Wolfowitz's successor, whomever it is and
whenever it becomes necessary to put nominees' names forward.
TIME FOR REFORM
Ted Truman, a former Treasury official during the Clinton administration and now a
senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said he also thinks the
flap over Wolfowitz demands swift change.
"I would hope it leads to a change in that old convention right away so it will become
more open and so that the American government then can say that is important also that
the same holds for the (International Monetary) Fund," Truman said.
That would require European Union governments to commit to encouraging nomination
of multiple candidates for the next managing director of the IMF, regardless of
nationality, a sort of tit-for-tat for a broader say in choosing a bank leader.
As Wolfowitz tried to make his case that he should not be ousted, he claimed on Monday
that pushing him out might make it harder to raise the money the World Bank needs its
185 member countries to put up for lending to the poorest nations.
Wolfowitz has been pressing countries to make new commitments to fund the bank's
lending arm, the International Development Agency, in a replenishment round known as
IDA 15, a term he used in addressing the investigating panel on Monday.
"If I am forced out in a circus-like process, it will only give those who are already
looking for an excuse not to contribute to IDA 15, the excuse they are seeking," he said.
Whether or not that is true, as some analysts concede might be the case, most say
Wolfowitz's heavy-handed management and alienation of bank staff means that his
staying on only makes a bad situation worse.
"I think at this point, the sooner he goes the better," Truman said. "It's doing no one any
good for him to stay at this point, not the bank nor staff nor Mr. Wolfowitz himself."