INTERNATIONAL POLITICS

WHEN THE NEW WORLD BANK PRESIDENT IS ANNOUNCED TODAY…

In a matter of hours from now, the next Chief Executive of the World Bank will be announced, as the current President, Robert Zoellick bows out on June 30. The last few weeks have however offered  journalists, politicians, economists, development experts and indeed the global community opportunities for expression, demonstration and analysis of interests, opinions and expectations as to who becomes the next chief tenant of the Bretton Woods’ institution for another five years. Some of these interests, opinions and expectations are coloured in different shades for different persons and groups.

For all, the motivation behind election or selection (whichever we eventually have) of the next President of the World Bank should be the obvious need to advance global development and institutional strengthening. In effect, the overriding interest must be the common good of mankind regardless of race, state and personal affiliations of the candidate. For the President of the United States and his “anointed one” Jim Yong Kim, an accomplished Public Health expert, the race to the Bretton Woods may be a move in proving to the Republicans that he (Obama) is still in charge of the interests of US and the American people and so deserves to retain the leadership of the White House for another four years, especially, as the US Presidential election draws nearer.

For the African community and its few allies, it appears that their support for the economic czar and the Harvard and MIT-trained Nigeria’s finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, is the emotional feeling against “America’s monopoly” of the World Bank’s leadership since inception. The candidates on their own have come under the spotlight of analysts since expression of their interests for the race.  The two candidates appear to parade excellent credentials as development experts. While Kim has records of remarkable Public Health development of the global community, Iweala is a versed and well experienced economic expert with verifiable results. Though some of the supporters of the Nigeria’s finance minister have emotionally argued since Kim is only Public Health expert and not an economist or banker, he is less qualified to Iweala who is armed with a PhD in Regional Economic Development from MIT. Contrary to this opinion, you do not need to be an economist to lead institutions like the World Bank or the IMF. Christine Lagarde, the current Managing Director of the IMF is a lawyer and a significant number of past Presidents of the World Bank were also lawyers with financial sector experience. So, experience and competence should rather be the parameters for qualification into this office and not certificates or sentiments. This is the ideal!

However, in the face of the ideal, what appears real is that whoever will emerge amongst these two candidates will do so on the strengths of its supporters or sponsors. It is obvious that the respective weights being thrown behind these candidates by their sponsors are one hand “HEAVY WEIGHT” and on the other “Light Weight” US whose candidate is Kim, has the largest voting power which is 15.85% of the voting powers, while EU has 29.2% and it is believed that US already has the support of EU for often supporting the EU for producing the IMF’s Managing Director. United States is also believed to have earned the support of some other countries like Japan which 6.84% is more than the entire Africa’s voting power of 5%. This analysis may just quickly help call to mind the saying that in a democracy, “Minority will have their say, but majority will have their way” Going by the analysis of the voting rights of the state-members of the World Bank, if Kim is eventually announced today as the next President of the World Bank, definitely the critical minds will not be caught by surprise. But what about the America’s commitments to ensure an open and election based on merit? Sure we all know that such statement was ordinarily expected as one of the clichés in a democratic society. 

But when (or should I have said “If”) Kim is finally announced as the next President of the World Bank, more than any other thing, America’s reactions and statements of its leaders, including any speech by President Obama may paint the country’s diplomacy in a particular light and evidently show its respect for merit and competence against the parameter of its confessions.