The king is dead; long live the queen. Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the French erstwhile managing director of the International Monetary Fund, had not even resigned before Europeans started to coalesce around Christine Lagarde, the French finance minister, as his successor. Gone are past promises of an open selection. The Europeans insist on the principle that what we have we hold. The ancien régime survives.
Mme Lagarde is a perfectly respectable candidate. She is French, almost a requirement, it often seems, for the European head of an international institution. She is a woman, surely an advantage, not least when her predecessor is facing charges of attempted rape. She was chairman of Baker & McKenzie, a famous US law firm and she speaks English fluently. She is an extremely likeable and impressive person. But she is not a perfect candidate: her economics are limited. If she were to become head of the organisation she would have to rely on the advice of those around her. If she were to get the job, it would be essential for whoever replaces John Lipsky, the American first deputy managing director, who is due to depart in August, to be a first-rate economist.
I write as if she is going to get the job. I am quite sure she is. As of today, the European Union still has 32 per cent of the votes (see chart) and the US another 16.7 per cent. If the latter supports them, as I suspect it will, the Europeans will have no difficulty in obtaining additional votes from countries dependent upon them. Why might the US support the Europeans once again? One reason is that the US has not yet given up on the old bargain, which gives it a permanent lock on the presidency of the World Bank. Indeed, the Americans will probably tell themselves that the chances of getting any money from Congress for World Bank programmes (above all, its concessional lending arm, the International Development Association) if the Bank’s head is not an American is close to zero.