Kevin Rafferty

New IMF leader Kristalina Georgieva must smash the system that gave her the job if she wants to truly help the world

Kristalina Georgieva has all the qualifications in both finance and politics to be an excellent IMF managing director. Nonetheless, her defining task will be reforming the opaque, inadequate system through which she was appointed

Reading Time:3 minutes

Why you can trust SCMP

Kristalina Georgieva delivers remarks after being confirmed as the new managing director of the International Monetary Fund at the IMF headquarters in Washington, DC, on September 25. Photo: EPA-EFE

Kevin Rafferty

Published: 1:00am, 3 Oct 2019Updated: 1:33am, 3 Oct 2019

Without fanfare, Kristalina Georgieva was anointed to succeed Christine Lagarde as managing director of the International Monetary Fund. I am sure she will be brilliantly successful.

But her finest hour will be in leaving the IMF in five years if she manages to smash and replace the system through which she took the job. It is time global financial institutions chose the best candidate in a transparent way.

Sadly, Georgieva came to the job though a sham, the opposite of the fund’s executive board when it announced “an open, merit-based and transparent” search for Lagarde’s successor.

Instead, European Union ministers huddled together and, after bitter arguments, infighting and two rounds of voting, Georgieva became the EU’s choice.

Her selection marked the waning influence of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who supported Dutch candidate Jeroen Dijsselbloem. France led southern and east European countries, which opposed the austerity measures Dijsselbloem promoted with the IMF in bailing out Greece, Cyprus and Spanish banks.

Departing International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde waves to her successor Kristalina Georgieva at the IMF’s headquarters in Washington on September 2. Photo: AFP