Search begins for new IMF boss
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Koehler was appointed chief of the International Monetary Fund in 2000.
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LONDON, England -- Horst Koehler's resignation from the top stop at the International Monetary Fund has sparked a debate over who will be his successor.
Koehler -- nominated by Germany's main opposition parties Thursday for the largely ceremonial presidential post -- said his deputy Anne Krueger would be acting managing director until the IMF's 184 member states name a permanent replacement.
"I am deeply honored to be nominated for the office of the federal president of Germany," Reuters quoted Koehler as saying in Washington, where the IMF is based.
"I accept this nomination today and according to the rules of the IMF, I have to resign immediately."
Among those mentioned as Koehler's replacement are France's Jean Lemierre, who succeeded Koehler as chief of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and Briton Andrew Crockett, a former head of the Bank for International Settlements.
Other possible candidates include Gordon Brown, the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, German Deputy Finance Minster Caio Koch-Weser and Spain's Economy Minister Rodrigo Rato, as well as Italy's Mario Draghi, a Goldman Sachs managing director.
Koehler's departure launches a search to fill a job that has gone to a European since the IMF's 1945 inception. Sister lender the World Bank is typically headed by an American, shutting out Japan and the developing world.
The 2000 resignation of former IMF chief Michel Camdessus sparked an ugly debate between Europe, which wanted the job in European hands, and nations that saw this tradition as outdated.
Asked if the United States wanted to avoid another European at the helm, Reuters quoted U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher as saying: "I don't know if we have taken a position on that."
However, European Commission President Romano Prodi said: "I am deeply convinced that another European should take up this position, considering the very important economic weight which Europe and the European Union represents on the international stage."
