Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan and South African Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan, who jointly chair a G20 committee on reform of the IMF, said the convention that the fund's managing director was a European was already out of date and proposes the basis for the appointment of the next IMF chief.
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The finance ministers of Australia and South Africa said in a joint statement said that the next IMF chief and the one who replaces Dominique Strauss-Kahn should be determined based on merit and not on nationality.
They were both referring to the G20 agreement adopted in Pittsburgh, USA in 2009 that called for an open selection process for the IMF chief, saying that agreement should be honored.
They said: "The global financial crisis demonstrated that the world needs a strong IMF and a strong managing director. For too long, the IMF's legitimacy has been undermined by a convention to appoint its senior management on the basis of their nationality.
The task is urgent given the current challenges facing the global economy, including in particular the needs of low income and developing countries who rely on the IMF for support," said the two leaders, adding that the global financial crisis demonstrated the need for a strong managing director.
Commitments made by G20 leaders on the reform of International Financial Institutions should be adhered to, particularly those made in Pittsburgh where leaders agreed that the heads and senior leadership of all international institutions "should be appointed through an open, transparent and merit-based process."
"Australia and South Africa, as co-chairs of the G20 IMF Reform Working Group, want to underscore the importance of adhering to the commitments agreed to by G20 leaders regarding the selection of the next managing director of the IMF," said the leaders.
On Friday, the Dean of the Executive Board of the IMF Shakour Shaalan said the board has adopted a procedure that allows the selection of the next managing director to take place in an open, merit based, and transparent manner.
"There was broad support in the Executive Board for this procedure," he said. The nomination period for the closing of the post begins today closing on 10 June.
"Although the Executive Board may select a Managing Director by a majority of the votes cast, the objective of the Executive Board is to select the Managing Director by consensus with the objective of completing the selection process by 30 June 2011," said the IMF.
ncreasing importance of emerging economies, particularly in Asia, as a reason for considering non-Europeans for the post.
Swan wrote in a regular economic note: "The tradition of automatically appointing a European to the role is one that's long past its use-by-date given the shift of global economic weight to emerging economies, particularly in Asia, over the past few decades."
Australia will not be pushing its own candidate to become the next managing director of the International Monetary Fund, instead campaigning for an appointment on "merit" because the convention of appointing Europeans is out of date.
The Treasurer, Wayne Swan, is believed to have decided Australia's push for reform in the fund's appointment processes would be stronger without an Australian candidate. Names that are said to floating for the next IMF chief speculations include Kevin Rudd, Ken Henry and Peter Costello.
The IMF has guaranteed transparency in the selection process, saying it will choose by the end of June the most qualified candidate to succeed Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who resigned days after his arrest in New York on May 14 on charges of sexual assault.
Any of the IMF's 187 member nations will be able to nominate candidates until June 10.
The IMF's second-in-charge, John Lipsky, has been named acting managing director. Mr. Lipsky is a former chief economist at JPMorgan Chase, and was scheduled to retire in August.
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