Bethel Finance news:
Israeli central banker Stanley Fischer is examining a formal bid to head the International Monetary Fund, said an official familiar with his thinking, and figures he has an outside shot at the job if there is a deadlock in the voting.
Mr. Fischer, a former deputy managing director of the IMF, is a long shot. While he's widely respected among central bankers and finance ministers, his current position as Israel's central bank governor would make it tough to win the support of Arab nations and other emerging-market countries, said an Arab official who has worked with Mr. Fischer.
Mexico's central bank governor, Agustin Carstens, hopes to lock up the emerging-market bloc, while other candidates from developing countries could announce their candidacies in the coming days, including former South African finance minister Trevor Manuel. The IMF plans to announce three candidates by June 10 and select a winner by the end of the month.
The odds-on favorite, French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde, is widely supported in Europe, which has about 35% of the votes in the IMF. A simple majority is needed to win the job. She told The Wall Street Journal on Thursday she expects shortly to tour major emerging-market countries, including China and Brazil, to build support.
If neither Mr. Carstens nor Ms. Lagarde—nor any other candidate—can show strength beyond their region, the official said, Mr. Fischer figures IMF officials, who know him well, might turn to him as a compromise pick. The official said Mr. Fischer has had indications of support from nations apart from Israel.
One big handicap: Mr. Fischer is 67 years old—two years older than IMF rules allow for the initial selection of a managing director. But IMF experts have said that the board could waive or change those rules.
In any scenario, the U.S., with 17% of the vote, will play an enormous role in selecting the next managing director. The U.S. probably has enough votes to put Ms. Lagarde over the top now, but hasn't indicated it will back her—at least in part, to make the process seem fair and open. The U.S. also wants to be able to install White House economic official David Lipton in the No. 2 slot, once occupied by Mr. Fischer.
Mr. Fischer has wide range of close colleagues in the Obama administration, including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. During the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998, Mr. Geithner, then a Treasury international affairs official, worked closely with Mr. Fischer at the IMF to devise strategies to contain the economic turmoil.
But it's far from clear that the U.S. would back Mr. Fischer—and in the past it opposed his candidacy for the top job.
In 2000, Mr. Fischer, then the IMF's deputy managing director, made a run for IMF managing director and picked up substantial support from Africa and the Middle East, including from Mr. Manuel of South Africa. Mr. Fischer was born in what is now Zambia and positioned himself as an African candidate despite his U.S. citizenship. But the U.S. balked, trying to preserve the tradition of the top IMF job going to a European and the second position going to a U.S. citizen.
Eventually, Germany's Horst Kohler, who was president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, got the managing director's job, and Anne Krueger, an American economist, got the No. 2 slot.
Mr. Fischer, who now also holds an Israeli passport, figures he can blunt somewhat the opposition that an Israeli candidate might engender, said the official, because he has close ties with top Palestinian leaders. They include Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, whose career Mr. Fischer advanced when Mr. Fayyad was at the IMF.
Asian countries, however, may balk at Mr. Fischer's candidacy because of his role during the Asian financial crisis, which is remembered in the region as a time when the IMF imposed unfair requirements on bankrupt nations in exchange for rescue loans.
Still, Mr. Fischer is widely praised for helping keep the Israeli economy humming during tumultuous times there during his tenure at Israel's central bank, which started in 2005.
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