With Cecelia Todesca, Alberto fights for the direction of the IDB

Argentina yesterday proposed Cecilia Todesca Bocco as its candidate for the presidency of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the day the deadline for submitting candidates to fill the post left vacant by the displaced Mauricio Claver-Carone closed. , after a scandal for a love affair with an employee.

The American candidate had a brief and turbulent period at the IDB, and after his withdrawal, another electoral body was opened. And Alberto, who had initially given up promoting his own candidate, is now back in action with the appointment of Cecilia Todesca.

The candidacy of the Secretary for International Economic Relations of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was confirmed yesterday afternoon by Casa Rosada. It will be Alberto Fernández’s second consecutive attempt to impose an Argentinian at the head of the regional bank. In February 2020, he proposed the Secretary for Strategic Affairs, Gustavo Béliz, but his candidate did not win the support of other countries and the president dropped him from the race. Finally, in the September elections of that year, Mauricio Claver-Carone was elected.

It is now the turn of Todesca, who, because she is a woman, may have a better chance of obtaining votes from neighboring countries. The Argentinian official will have to compete with five other candidates: from Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador and Costa Rica to succeed the American Claver-Carone, dismissed on September 26 by the Board of Governors of the IDB, after an investigation into an alleged romantic relationship with a subordinate found him responsible for violating ethics rules.

Since then, the multilateral credit agency has been temporarily chaired by Honduran Queen Irene Mejía, the first woman to lead it since its creation in 1959. Apart from this interim period, the IDB has had only five presidents in 63 years. : the Chilean Felipe Herrera (1959-1970), the Mexican Antonio Ortiz Mena (1970-1988), the Uruguayan Enrique Iglesias (1988-2005), the Colombian Luis Moreno (2005-2020) and Claver-Carone from 2020 until to his recent dismissal.

Therefore, if elected, Todesca Bocco would not only be the first woman to lead the organization permanently, but also the first to represent Argentina. To do so, he must defeat the candidacies of Gerardo Esquivel (Mexico), Ilhan Godlfjan (Brazil), Augusto de la Torre (Ecuador), Laura Chinchilla (Costa Rica) and Nicolás Eyzaguirre (Chile).

Sources linked to the IDB in Washington said that “the new IDB presidency should emerge from a consensus candidate, who has never been president before, who has a relatively young impulse and, moreover, he tends to occupy the position of woman”. ‘. In this way, Todesca and Chinchilla would have certain possibilities of being elected, to which we must add that there have already been presidents of Chile and Mexico.

Once the candidacies have been confirmed, the Board of Governors will hold an extraordinary meeting on two different dates, November 13 and 20. And the sessions to elect the next IDB president will take place on November 20 at the IDB headquarters.

Majority of 26 votes

The IDB has 26 member countries, including the United States, Mexico, Canada and Brazil. To be elected President of the IDB, the candidate must have the support of a certain number of member countries which give him an absolute majority of votes.