Lagarde, Carstens on IMF shortlist

bank chief, a last-minute entry, was left off as a candidate.
The determined backing of crisis-mired Europe made Lagarde the odds-on favourite to become International Monetary Fund managing director after her countryman Dominique Strauss-Kahn resigned on May 18 to fight sexual assault charges in New York.
Carstens, the Mexican central bank chief who has tried to break the 65-year European lock on the position, acknowledged as much earlier Monday to a Washington audience.
“The chances of Christine Lagarde getting elected are quite high. I’m sure that she will make a good managing director,” he said at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
The two were the only ones named late on Monday when the IMF released the short list after nominations closed on Friday last week.
The IMF did not explain why Israel’s Stanley Fischer, who only declared himself at the last minute, was not on the list.
But by the Fund’s bylaws, his age at 67 put him two years over the official age for a new managing director, and obtaining a change or variance to the rules would have been a difficult process, while the executive board has given itself two weeks to reach a consensus on a new head.
Two other possibles, a South African minister and Kazakhstan’s central bank head, dropped out Friday, both saying that Lagarde was certain to be chosen in an arrangement that has always favoured the Europeans.
In a statement on Monday the board said it would meet with the two with the objective of making a choice by June 30.
Lagarde, France’s finance minister, and Carstens, who spent three years as IMF second deputy managing director from 2003-2006, have crisscrossed the globe seeking endorsements from the major economies whose weight is strongest in the IMF process. – AFP.