IMF to lose legitimacy without reform - Russia
MOSCOW, Oct 1 (Reuters) The International Monetary Fund will become irrelevant if it fails to give a greater voice to emerging nations, Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin wrote today.
Russia backed Czech former prime minister and central banker Josef Tosovsky to take charge at the IMF, but he lost out to France's ex-Finance Minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
Kudrin, writing in the Financial Times, criticised the longstanding convention under which the United States backs a European candidate to run the IMF. He said qualifications, not geography, should be decisive.
''It is not difficult to understand that if one or other structure is seen by a significant part of the world as ensuring the domination of one country or group of countries over others, it will lose its legitimacy,'' wrote Kudrin.
Kudrin said Russia would hold Strauss-Kahn to his pledge to reform the global lender to give developing countries greater clout.
''We
sincerely
hope
that
the
new
IMF
managing
director
will
be
able
to
put
into
practice
his
declared
programme.
Should
he
fail,
we
will
have
to
forget
about
the
IMF
as
a
serious
global
institution
regulating
international
finance.''
REUTERS
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