[Debate] Gordhan questions World Bank election process

[Riaz K Tayob]

[Nice to have some independence, at least until the debt bites 
conditionalities ... at least he is making hay while the shun sines....]

Gordhan questions World Bank election process
  JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA - Apr 16 2012 16:02



GORDHAN QUESTIONS WORLD BANK ELECTION

Serious doubt exists about the transparency of the process in electing 
the next World Bank president, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said on 
Monday.

"From what I've heard there are serious concerns about the level of 
transparency," Gordhan told the Foreign Correspondents Association in 
Johannesburg.

Directors of the World Bank will meet later in Washington DC, in the 
United States, on Monday to decide on the next president. The two 
candidates are Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and the US 
candidate, Dr Jim Yong Kim, an Asian-American public health expert and 
head of Dartmouth University.

The third candidate -- Jose Antonio Ocampo, Colombia's former finance 
minister and a professor at New York's Colombia University -- withdrew 
last week.

South Africa, and the rest of Africa, supported Okonjo-Iweala's 
candidacy. However, it was widely expected that the US candidate would 
win. The US had always chosen the candidate since the World Bank was 
established in 1944. In turn, a European always headed the International 
Monetary Fund. This was the first time ever that there was a challenger.

Question the process
Gordhan said the World Bank had met one criteria of democracy in that 
anyone could nominate anybody. However, he questioned whether the 
process followed after that had been democratic and transparent.

"The invitation was open to anybody to nominate a candidate ... the 
question is whether the process subsequent to that has followed through 
on the basis of democratic tenets."

He questioned whether all candidates were given a chance to meet the 
position's merit-based criteria.

CONTINUES BELOW


"I think we're going to find this process falls short of this criteria."

Gordhan said the world would wait for the announcement to see whether 
the World Bank had "improved its legitimacy".

"The world will be waiting to see whether the World Bank has improved 
its legitimacy, has broadened its base of participation in terms of 
candidates, to the extent to which established powers are willing to 
concede [power]."

Current president, Robert Zoellick (58) would leave the institution at 
the end of his five-year term in June. -- Sapa