Reply #45: World Bank Chief to Step Down in '05 (uh-oh)

[54anickel]

With Bush's Backing Unlikely, Wolfensohn Plans to Leave Post After Term Expires

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43175-2005Jan2.html

James D. Wolfensohn, president of the World Bank, said yesterday that he expects to leave his job after his term ends this year, heralding the end of a tumultuous decade at the helm of the development lender.

"I've had 10 years, and I think that's probably enough," Wolfensohn said on ABC's "This Week" when asked whether he would like to stay beyond his second five-year term. "But if the need is there, I'll do whatever the want. My understanding and my belief is that probably during the course of this year I'll give over to someone else."

The comment was the first public acknowledgement by Wolfensohn, 71 , that he is unlikely to win the backing of the Bush administration for a third term. In recent months World Bank officials have described him as eager to stay on well past June, when his term expires, but increasingly resigned to the prospect that the Bush team would prefer to replace him with someone else. Publicly, Wolfensohn has said only that around year-end he will assess his chances of being reappointed, and make up his mind then.

By tradition, the United States, the largest shareholder among the World Bank's 184 member nations, chooses an American to head the bank, while Europe gets to choose the head of the International Monetary Fund.

The administration is still in the early stages of sifting names of potential replacements for Wolfensohn, but administration sources have said that Washington plans to consult with other member nations and conduct a more "transparent" selection process than in the past, when the decision was made by a handful of top U.S. officials.

Prominently mentioned as a candidate for the job is Robert B. Zoellick, the U.S. Trade Representative. Other possibilities include John B. Taylor, the undersecretary of the treasury for international affairs; Randall L. Tobias, the administration's global AIDS coordinator; Christine Todd Whitman, the former director of the Environmental Protection Agency; and Carla A. Hills, Zoellick's predecessor during the administration of President Bush's father.

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