Category Archives: Candidates

Voting arithmetic examined

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With all the excited talk about the candidates and their interviews, lets get down to brass tacks – the World Bank Board is going to hold a straw poll today to check into where countries are. While a formal decision is expected to be taken and announced Monday this straw poll is important to see if the developing countries can coalesce around one candidate and make the Europeans think again about the gentleman’s agreement (read: sordid back room deal with the Americans). Who has the numbers?

It is all a bit complicated because the Bank is in the middle of their capital increase, which has not fully gone through all capitals yet. Meaning the voting rights at the board are neither the pre-2010 agreement levels, nor the final 2010 agreement levels. The Bank corporate secretary helpfully published a new table of voting rights by executive director yesterday.

Here’s the arithmetic as far as we know or can guess.

  • US, Canada, Japan for Kim. Lets add Spain/Mexico in that column since the Mexicans declared their preference. And lets Add New Zealand/Australia/South Korea as well since the Korean president has backed Kim.
  • Latin Americans for Ocampo – Brazil nominated him, the Argentinians wouldn’t dream of supporting one of the others at this point.
  • Three African constituencies for Okonjo-Iweala given the African Union support.
Kim 36.7% Okonjo-Iweala 4.9%
Ocampo 5.7% unknown 52.7%

Continue reading →

Jim Yong Kim weak on whistleblower protections at Dartmouth

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Please find below a guest post from Bea Edwards, Executive Director at Government Accountability Project (GAP) in the United States, who analyses Jim Yong Kim’s support of fraternities at Dartmouth.

As president of Dartmouth University, Jim Yong Kim, presides over extreme, traumatizing, pervasive, revolting and potentially illegal hazing at fraternities.  Andrew Lohse, the whistleblower who exposed it, is now, alone among those charged with misconduct, on the brink of expulsion.

Janet Reitman of Rolling Stone investigated Dartmouth’s infamous fraternity system and described the violence, class privilege and ritual abuse that fraternity initiaties (pledges) must survive in order to join the clubs. In this forum, we don’t want to Continue reading →

Who came up on top?

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I’m already hearing from sources who attended the three interviews over the last three days that Ngozi has come up as the top candidate, followed closely by Ocampo, with Dr. Kim a distant third. Three things have worked for Ngozi to push her over Ocampo, she knows the bank inside-out,  has experience on both sides of the table – a client and world banker-, and that she is an African woman supported by the whole African Union. This, if selected, will make her not only the first non-American to head the bank, but also the first woman, and first African. In the words of the Economist, “May the best woman win”

Jim Yong Kim’s statement to the World Bank’s board

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The Treasury Department has published the statement that US nominee, Jim Yong Kim, made Wednesday morning to the in camera session of the World Bank’s executive directors before a lengthy questioning and a private lunch.

CSO colleagues who have been skeptical about the process and about Jim Kim’s writings, background and commitment  should read the ending Continue reading →

Ocampo at the CGD public debate

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In his turn at the presentations organised at CGD, José Antonio Ocampo expressed his view on the Bank, being quite critical of the issues in which, according to him, the institution has not performed well, like country ownership and cooperation with other international organisations. He also expressed the need to change the culture of the Bank in order for it to become a clients-based organisation, and criticised the US for not increasing capital or allowing other countries to do so.

On country ownership he said: Continue reading →

Red flags at Ngozi’s CGD speech

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Ngozi gave a speech and took part in a question and answer session at CGD recently. She was her usual effusive and passionate self, although often a little vague when it came to policy positions. The mainstream press has picked up on her campaign motifs: she put a large emphasis on job creation (although her actual record on job creation is called into question here), and on the Bank delivering finance/results/technical assistance faster. The Washington Post covers some more things here, including her insistence that US capital contriutions will not be threatened by a non-US candidate.

On some issues she seemed to demand significant changes at the Bank. She said the Bank should look at the African Development Bank for lessons on selecting leaders, seemingly endorsing double-majority voting, and said there needs to be a serious conversation about increasing capital contributions and voting shares for MICs.

There were however some other interesting points I think should be brought to light. These seem to indicate that on many issues she is sticking to already well-developed Bank approaches, and reaffirm her status as the ‘establishment choice’. Reformers and revolutionaries beware. On other issues she raised various red flags for campaigners: Continue reading →

Ocampo takes shots at the US and the staff of the World Bank

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In today’s event at CGD, Jose Antonio Ocampo said “The current president was too shy in asking for a capital increase,”… “The United States “says it cannot get the money through Congress, but it does not want to lose shares in the (Bank’s) capital. So that means we’re stuck with a World Bank which is constrained by its major shareholder.” Adding “At one point, sooner rather than later, the Bank will have to negotiate a capital increase.”
He also went on to speak about what he will change Continue reading →

With Ngozi appearances deceive

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Patrick Bond’s three part essay on the race for the presidency for the World Bank, published below, contains a long section on Ngozi. It is in part three and is well worth a read, as it one of the few times we have seen the Nigerain finance ministers record called seriously into question. Ngozi has been the subject of countless fawning op-eds from the commentariat in Washington and Europe, with very little analysis of her tenure at the Bank or in the Nigerian government. It seems strange that an elected official, nominated for such an important position, should not receive more scrutiny. She has run a smooth PR campaign thus far, and it seems journalists have exercised their energy on Kim, with little critical fuel left in the tank for Ngozi. Continue reading →