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Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the French candidate to be Rato successor at the IMF, was in Latin America last week in order to increase his support to become the new IMF Managing Director. Argentina was one of the countries chosen, where was probably the IMF's biggest catastrophe. There, the government didn't offer an outright endorsement but they came very close.

It is important to remark the influence that the electoral campaign is having in the political discourse during DSK's stay in the country. The government pointed out the negative impacts of the IMF during the last crisis and seized the opportunity to emphazise whenever possible the positive policies conducted by the government in relation to the IMF. One more time the option of being against the "recipes" of IMF was appraised publicly. However, it is important to consider that the previous Finance Minister, Ms. Felisa Miceli, was a more radical voice in terms of demanding strong changes on policies and governance on the IMF than the current Mr. Miguel Peirano.

Regarding the meetings that DSK held in Argentina, the media pointed out that Mr. Kirchner's government put three different "conditions" to support his candidature.

The first one, has to do with the resolution of the situation of the external face of the economy, which is a complex renegotiation with the Paris Club, still in uncertain terms. This is one of the most important pending issues of the argentinian government, especially since the Paris Club requiered first the approval of the IMF, a thing that the argentinian government is not willing to accept. According to press reports, DSK did not refuse to work in favor of this possiblity.

Secondly, Mr. Kirchner also complained about the adverse attitude that some IMF representatives expressed publicly - Anoop Singh among others - regarding the development of the local economy. This resulted in a cold and weakened relationship between the IMF staff and Argentina's government in this last period.

Thirdly, the Minister of Finance and the National Bank governor, Mr. Martín Redrado, expressed to DSK their interest to work for a real change on the institution. They mentioned two propositions (not really new at all), to establish a "double majority" voting system to the IMF decisions, and to update the quota and voting power of the country members periodically. Unfortunately, they did not mention in these meetings the implementation of a transparent and merit-based process for the selection of the Managing Director. In that case, the current support for DSK candidature would be logically questioned.

Beyond all the "political" answers given by DSK to argentinian requests, he came near to the objective of his trip: increase his support to become the new IMF Managing Director.

Related Information:

* UK endorses DSK; Argentine candidate also has kind words, by Soren Ambrose on IFIwatchnet blog

* Britain endorses Strauss-Kahn for IMF top job, by Reuters

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