The election this week of French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde as the new managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to replace Dominique Strauss-Kahn who resigned in mid-May, appears to represent both continuity and change.
Commentators who have sought to emphasise change have pointed to the fact that she is the first woman to head the IMF and that, as a lawyer, she is the first non-economist to occupy this position.
It is, indeed, pleasing that the 24 men who constitute the IMF board decided to give the top post to a female candidate, but I believe it was her vision for the organisation and impressive track record, not gender, that swayed the board.
Prior to joining politics about six years ago, Madame Lagarde was the chief executive officer of the Chicago-based international law firm, Baker and McKenzie, for five years. And before taking on the finance portfolio in the French government, she was a very successful trade and agriculture minister.
The critics who claim that her appointment represents continuity rather than change point correctly to the facts that she is the fifth French citizen, and the 11th Western European, to hold this post.
By the time her tenure ends in June 2016, the French will have led the IMF for 31 years out of the previous 38, following Jacques de Larosière (1978-1987), Michel Camdessus (1987-2000) and Strauss-Kahn (2007-2011).
Therefore, it was not surprising that, following the news of Madame Lagarde’s election, French President Nicolas Sarkozy was reported to have said her success represented French victory.
Only two other nationalities have headed the IMF for brief periods since 1978: Horst Köhler of Germany from May 2000 to March 2004, and Rodrigo de Rato of Spain from June 2004 to November 2007.
In commenting on the possible replacement for Strauss-Kahn in this column six weeks ago, I observed that while Madame Lagarde was eminently qualified to head the IMF, the board had an obligation to consider non-Western candidates for a change.
My reasoning was based on the fact that the international political and economic realities have changed considerably in the past two decades, which makes it imperative that the world looks beyond Western Europe and North America for leadership of the international financial institutions, including the IMF and the World Bank.
Moreover, during the 2008-2009 global financial crisis, participants from all the world’s continents, operating through the G-20, generated the ideas, strategies and resources that provided the platform for a faster recovery.
The fact that the Mexican candidate, Agustin Carstens, a former IMF senior official, was not selected to lead the organisation does not suggest that the developing world has been ignored.
Unlike her predecessors, Christine Lagarde did not assume she would take the position simply because she had been endorsed by Europe. Instead she had to campaign intensely in all continents, which implied that voices from the non-Western world were being heard.
Moreover, Madame Lagarde got support from many non-European countries, including China, several other Asian states, Russia and many African countries.
However, the bargaining that took place prior to her election imply that she could be the last Western European to hold the position for a time, which might go to an “emerging” state in 2016.
Prof Makinda teaches at Murdoch Univesrity in Australia.
PAYE Tax Calculator
Note: The results are not exact but very close to the actual.
