IMF new chief selection due June 30

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WASHINGTON: The International Monetary Fund's selection process for a new managing director will kick off with nominations Monday, and the final decision expected by June 30, the institution said late Friday.

"I am very pleased to announce that the Fund's Executive 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," A. Shakour Shaalan, dean of the IMF executive board, said in a statement.

The position was opened in extraordinary circumstances this week after the former head Dominique Strauss-Kahn resigned in the wake of a sex scandal.

An individual "may be nominated for the position of Managing Director by a Fund Governor or an Executive Director during a nomination period which shall commence on May 23, 2011 and will close on June 10, 2011," said the IMF.

The board's aim "is to select the managing director by consensus with the objective of completing the selection process by June 30, 2011."

French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde emerged Friday as Europe's choice to lead the IMF, getting a boost when a Turkish favorite ruled out his candidacy for the powerful job.

Even as leaders in emerging economies clamored for one of their own to take a job monopolized by Europeans since 1946, analysts called Lagarde the odds-on favorite to replace Strauss-Kahn after he stepped down to face sexual assault charges in New York.

Lagarde is "practically a shoo-in" as the European Union's candidate to succeed Strauss-Kahn, an EU source said. (AFP)