WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Five countries – Argentina, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico, Brazil and Chile – nominated candidates for president of the Inter-American Development Bank ahead of a Nov. 20 board election, the bank said on Saturday.
Argentina had announced on Friday that it would nominate international economic relations Secretary Cecilia Todesca Bocco. Also previously nominated were Mexico’s central bank Deputy Governor Gerardo Esquivel and Chile’s former Finance Minister Nicolas Eyzaguirre.
Brazil’s outgoing President Jair Bolsonaro nominated former central bank chief Ilan Goldfajn, who heads the International Monetary Fund’s Western Hemisphere department.
Trinidad and Tobago nominated Gerard Johnson, a former IDB official now serving as a senior consultant to the Jamaican finance ministry, for the post.
The deadline for submitting nominations was 11:59 p.m. on Friday, the IDB said.
The IDB’s governors, who are usually finance ministers or other high-ranking economic authorities from the Bank’s 48 member countries, will interview the candidates at a virtual meeting on Nov. 13, with the election to follow at a hybrid meeting a week later, it said.
An aide to Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is seeking to delay the election until next year so that Brazil’s nomination can reflect the newly elected leader.
Former Finance Minister Guido Mantega said he sent a letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen to support a delay.
A Treasury spokesperson said Washington was not in favor.
“The rules for elections are clear and we expect the elections to occur on the agreed timeline. The nominations period just closed and the U.S. is carefully assessing each candidate,” the spokesperson said.
The U.S. Treasury, which did not nominate any candidate for the leadership role, holds 30% voting power in the bank, followed by Brazil (11%) and Argentina (11%). Colombia and Chile each hold a 3% stake.
Former President Mauricio Claver-Carone, the first American to hold the job, was ousted in an ethics scandal last month.
(Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by William Mallard, Stephen Coates and Diane Craft)
