Opinion | Editorials
Keeping Wolfowitz from the door
When it was first announced that Paul Wolfowitz was to be the president of the World Bank, it was almost inevitable that he would be in for a rough ride.
- Gulf News
- Published: 00:00 May 19, 2007
When it was first announced that Paul Wolfowitz was to be the president of the World Bank, it was almost inevitable that he would be in for a rough ride.
His nomination was unpopular among several incumbents in the World Bank who thought they knew of better candidates, not least because of the scarce experience he had in dealing with Third World issues, and even that was several decades previously.
But chief among the dissenters were those who were horrified that a person who was so strongly instrumental in advocating the Iraq war, and all its subsequent failures, should be put into a position of power aimed at giving succour to less well off nations.
The nomination was made by the US, which traditionally has the right to appoint the president of the World Bank - the European Union appoints the president of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
The right-wing Bush administration was keen to show support for a main supporter not only of the Iraq war, but also all that the administration stood for, which is why Wolfowitz was nominated over the heads of board dissenters.
With animosity in the air, it was only a matter of time before sufficient grounds could be found to create enough controversy to put Wolfowitz's job into jeopardy.
And those grounds were revealed by a World Bank staff member, who raised the issue of favouritism by Wolfowitz towards his girlfriend, a bank employee at the time of his appointment.
Although it now appears that Wolfowitz took startlingly bad decisions - something that has no tolerance in his position - it does also appear that he was not guided effectively by the bank's own ethics committee.
Whether this was by accident or design, only time will tell, but there is every appearance that there was a conspiracy hatched to dislodge Wolfowitz one way or another.
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