IMF opens managing director race, but to a party of one?

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The International Monetary Fund has opened the selection process for the next managing director, but it remains to be seen whether there will be more than one candidate.

Under an unwritten and increasingly scorned agreement, Europe chooses a European for IMF managing director and the United States picks an American president of the World Bank, the IMF's sister institution.

To general surprise, the IMF managing director, Rodrigo Rato, announced on June 28 he would step down in late October, two years before the end of his term.

European Union finance ministers moved swiftly last week to throw their support behind France's Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a former finance minister and moderate socialist, to succeed him.

The IMF executive board, however, issued a statement a couple of days later outlining the selection process, stressing the contest was open to any national of the Fund's 185 member countries.