Robert B. Zoellick, the United States trade representative, has jumped to the top of the list of candidates for president of the World Bank, the largest and most influential development agency in the world, writes the World Bank press review Friday.
James D. Wolfensohn, the current bank president, completes his second five-year term next spring, giving President Bush a chance to name his own person to become the spokesman for the worlds poor. Normally the bank president is an American.
Colin L. Powell, the outgoing US secretary of state and the previous top contender, said in no uncertain terms last week that he would not accept the job. And John W. Snow was extended, for now, as the Treasury secretary, removing one position that might have gone to Zoellick.
While Zoellick has never been considered an outspoken champion of the poor and the dispossessed around the globe, he is a rare internationalist in the administration and a tireless promoter of greater trade ties between the rich and poor nations.
Several senior development experts who work with the bank said that among the Republican candidates being mentioned for the position Zoellick had one of the strongest résumés to take over the institution at this critical juncture.
He has competitors, however. The most formidable is Randall L. Tobias, the global AIDS coordinator for the White House. The former vice chairman of AT and T International and head of Eli Lilly Company,
Tobias has worked closely with Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, who was nominated by the president to be secretary of state. In his current position he has won the admiration of conservatives and international development experts.
Peter McPherson, the president of Michigan State University, who led the first team sent to Iraq to revitalize the economy, has been under consideration for several years and has been seen in Washington an awful lot of late.
If President Bush goes outside Republican circles, he could tap Stanley Fischer, a vice chairman at Citigroup and a trained economist who is the former deputy director of the IMF. Those are credentials Zoellick lacks.
But Zoellick has powerful supporters as well. He is a protégé of James A. Baker, the former secretary of state and Treasury under the first President Bush. And he was one of the original Vulcans, the group of foreign policy experts who advised the current president in his 2000 campaign.
Zoellick himself is silent. His spokesman is under instructions to answer that “Ambassador Zoellick serves at the pleasure of the president and is focused on implanting the presidents trade agenda.” Powell was much more explicit last week when he rejected any discussion of running the World Bank.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
