GERARD Johnson, Trinidad and Tobago’s candidate for the position of president of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), has already created history.
“This is the first time in the history of the IDB that Caribbean is pushing a candidate for the top job,” said Robert Le Hunte, former commercial banker and minister of public utilities, who is now employed as an executive director at the IDB.
Le Hunte told Express Business on Monday that the five member states of the Caribbean constituency—Barbados, Jamaica, The Bahamas, Guyana and T&T—all support Johnson’s candidacy.
He said the T&T team supporting Johnson’s candidacy is working closely with the representatives of Suriname, Haiti and Belize—countries that are not part of the Caribbean constituency at the IDB, but are member states of the Caribbean Community (Caricom)—and he is confident of the support of those nations.
The candidacy of Johnson, who served for years as the general manager of the Caribbean Country Department at the IDB, certainly has the full support of the T&T Government.
Last Sunday, T&T’s Planning and Development Minister, Pennelope Beckles, took time out from leading this country’s delegation at the COP27 summit in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, to promote Johnson’s candidacy at the official interviews of the five candidates by the 48-member IDB board of governors.
In her address to her fellow IDB governors, Beckles said for over 60 years, the IDB Group has been an important source of multilateral financing for the region.
“This election comes at a time when we are grappling to manage with the effects of climate change, limited fiscal space, escalating debt to GDP, rising interest rates, fragile infrastructure and rising poverty.
“We need the Bank’s support now more than at any time in history.
“We as Governors have a responsibility to appoint a president with more than an academic understanding of these challenges.
“We need a president who has the ability to hit the ground running. A president who knows our region, our people. A president who has a deep appreciation for the nuances in our culture across the Hemisphere. A president who knows what works and what does not. A president who can effectively use that knowledge to channel the levels of support that we need for recovery, growth and prosperity.”
Beckles said the IDB board of governors must continue the clarion call for diversity, equity, and inclusion at the institution.
“And our strongest voice must always be for representation at all levels of the Bank. The election of a new president provides us with an opportune moment to constitute an executive that would reflect the diversity of the Latin America and Caribbean region.
“Mr. Johnson checks all these boxes,” said Beckles.
Education and experience
The reference by Beckles to the IDB needing a president who can hit the ground running points to Johnson’s employment at the institution for more than 30 years.
The first eight years of his career at the IDB he focused on Uruguay, Brazil and Central America, also serving as the country representative for Jamaica, Guatemala and Haiti.
Johnson advanced to the position of general manager of the Caribbean Country Department at the IDB where he supervised the country offices, forged strategic partnerships with governments, collaborated with other international financial development institutions and regional organisations, and promoted private sector engagements, according to his biography.
Johnson also led the growth of the IDB’s largest development lending programme in the Caribbean sub-region.
Johnson studied at Georgetown University in Washington, DC and was awarded a double BA in Economics and Spanish. He also studied economics at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain. He earned his master’s degree in economics at the University of Kent in the UK.
He is a native English speaker, fluent in Spanish, advanced in Portuguese and proficient in French.
Election criteria
Despite his qualifications and experience, even those promoting his candidacy admit that the path to the presidency of the IDB will not be easy for Johnson.
The presidency of the IDB has traditionally been held by a Latin American. Since its establishment in April 1959, the IDB has had five presidents, the first four of which came from Latin America—Chile, Mexico, Uruguay and Colombia.
The fifth and most recent president was Mauricio Claver-Carone, an American, who was nominated by former US president, Donald Trump, and served from October 1, 2020 to September 26, 2022.
The election for a new IDB president—which takes place this Sunday at a hybrid meeting of the board of governors—is necessary because Claver-Carone, was removed by the IDB governors following an ethics investigation.
Of the election of a president, the IDB website states: “In order to be elected president, a candidate must receive favourable votes from IDB member countries representing a majority of total voting power, including an absolute majority of the governors of the regional members (the 26 borrowing members countries plus Canada and the United States).”
In effect, this means more than 50 per cent of the voting power of the 48 member states and 15 of the 28 Western Hemisphere member states.
The IDB has 48 member states—26 borrowing and 22 non-borrowing nations. Of the 26 borrowing countries, eight are Caricom member states: The Bahamas; Barbados; Belize; Guyana; Haiti; Jamaica; Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago.
The 26 IDB member states in Latin America and the Caribbean hold 50.015 per cent of the voting power of the institution, but the eight Caricom member states only hold 2.18 per cent of the IDB’s voting power.
Each member’s voting power is determined by its shareholding: its subscription to the Bank’s ordinary capital.
To be elected as IDB president, one Washington DC source believes Johnson would need to garner the voting support of the US, which has 30 per cent of the IDB’s share capital, and Canada, which has four per cent, according to the IDB’s 2021 annual report.
Support from either Argentina and Brazil—countries that each have candidates in the race and both of which own 11.35 per cent of the IDB’s capital—would also be useful, according to the Washington DC source. The two other candidates come from Mexico and Chile.
Brazil’s candidate, Ilan Goldfajn, who heads the International Monetary Fund’s Western Hemisphere department, was nominated by Brazil’s outgoing president, Jair Bolsonaro. Reuters reported last Friday that an aide to Brazilian President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva wants Sunday’s election postponed so Brazil’s nomination can reflect its newly elected government.
Former Finance Minister Guido Mantega, who is on Lula’s transition team, said he sent a letter to US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, and spoke with representatives of other Latin American countries “to look for a candidate that represents union.”
A Treasury spokesperson told Reuters on Saturday that Washington was not in favour of a postponement of the election.
