The path for Kristalina Georgieva to be re-elected as managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been completely clear. A brief press release issued this Thursday by the organization's executive council makes it clear that the current president, 70 years old, will not encounter any opposition to renew her five-year mandate, once the current one expires next fall. “The period for submitting applications for the position of next managing director closed on Wednesday, April 3, 2024,” said that statement. “One candidate, the current managing director of the IMF, Kristalina Georgieva, has been nominated,” he adds.
The communication sent to the media, signed by the coordinators of the executive council, Afonso S. Bevilaqua and Abdullah F. BinZarah, indicates that the board “will now proceed in line with the process described in the decision of March 13.” That day the starting signal was given to the process of selecting the next managing director or the renewal of Georgieva, who will now have to hold a series of meetings and interviews with the fund's executive directors. The idea that remains is to close this phase throughout this month.
What will not happen, like five years ago, is that Georgieva will face a vote against other candidates. Several European candidates then participated in the selection process, including the then Spanish Minister of Economy, Nadia Calviño. In the final vote, the Bulgarian politician, who started as a favorite because she was the option of France (which left the position vacant with the departure of Christine Lagarde) and for which the IMF modified the age requirement for the position, prevailed without great margin to the Dutchman Jeroen Dijesselbloem.
This time, in fact, his path has been much clearer from the beginning. The Finance Ministers of Germany and France, Christina Lindner and Bruno Le Maire, had already shown their support. And also the Minister of Economic Affairs of Spain, Carlos Body, supported Georgieva when it became known that she had presented her candidacy. With three of the four large European economies in favor of her, it would be very difficult for her to miss out on a position that she traditionally reserves for Europe. In exchange, although it is an unwritten rule, the United States reserves the presidency of the World Bank.
Georgieva took over as managing director of the IMF in October 2019. Her first term has been anything but boring. Shortly after arriving she encountered the Covid-19 pandemic, which convulsed the world economy and took the finances of many countries to unimaginable limits shortly before. This would lead to successive critical situations, such as the bottlenecks in global supply chains in the early stages of the recovery or the persistent inflation that arrived later and forced many central banks to drastically change their monetary policies. The energy crisis, aggravated by the return of war to Europe with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, further complicated the picture. And all this together with the traditional activity of the IMF providing support to some countries in particular difficulties, as has been the recent case of the crisis in Argentina.
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