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Bush banks on Mr Fixit

Exceptional diplomatic skills were high on US President George W. Bush's wish list as he went shopping for a new leader of the troubled World Bank.

His choice had to be someone who could build bridges and restore confidence in the global lender after the two tumultuous years of Paul Wolfowitz's tenure.

In Robert Bruce Zoellick, a former deputy US secretary of state, trade representative and long-serving Bush loyalist with a reputation as a world peacemaker, the president is convinced he finally has his man.

Few American politicians are as experienced in bringing warring parties together as the Harvard-educated Mr Zoellick, 53, who will take over from Dr Wolfowitz as president of the World Bank next month, providing the organisation's 24 governors give their blessing.

During the administration of Mr Bush's father, Mr Zoellick was the lead US negotiator at the 'Two Plus Four' discussions that brought about the reunification of Germany in 1990.

As a senior State Department official in the late 1980s and early 1990s, he helped broker a regional peace plan in Central America that brought an end to decades of fighting in countries such as Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala.

And he joined then secretary of state James Baker in negotiations that ended the cold war and helped bring stability to the eastern bloc following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

'I've known Bob Zoellick for more than two decades and I've always appreciated his talent as a craftsman of consensus and his ability to extend a hand to developing countries,' said Pascal Lamy, the French director-general of the World Trade Organisation.

'He comes in with some very important positives,' agreed Dennis de Tray, vice-president of the Washington-based Centre for Global Development and a former World Bank country director for Indonesia.

'He has a strong international reputation, he is clearly a good negotiator and can keep focused on the ultimate objective and give in on the lesser objectives to get to a 'yes'. None of the bank's previous presidents had that.'

Despite his impressive CV, appeasing the World Bank's 10,000 staff, and quelling dissent among its 185 member nations following the conflict and traumas of the Wolfowitz era, will be one of Mr Zoellick's biggest challenges.

Then he must tackle the economic issues facing the bank, which is committed to loaning almost US$30 billion to poorer nations over the next three years, but the bank came under growing international criticism for its pro-US policies even before the scandal that engulfed his predecessor over an improper pay rise and promotion for a girlfriend.

Some analysts feel that the appointment of Mr Zoellick, who served as US overseas trade representative from 2001 to 2005 and has a reputation as a demanding boss, is a missed opportunity to give the World Bank a more global perspective.

'The bank's official mission is to fight global poverty, not promote US corporate interests, and after the Wolfowitz uproar, one might have expected the Bush administration to pick a more genteel and broad-minded successor,' said Sarah Anderson, director of the Global Economy Programme at Washington's left-leaning Institute of Policy Studies.

'For more than 60 years, however, the United States has enjoyed the unwritten privilege of crowning the bank's leader and despite the wreckage of the Wolfowitz debacle there appears to be little resistance from the rest of the world to the imposition of yet another Bush insider.'

Mr Zoellick's nomination has been welcomed in Europe, particularly by Germany and France, which were vehemently opposed to Dr Wolfowitz's elevation two years ago, largely because of the neo-conservative's role as an architect of the war in Iraq. Singapore, Mexico and Canada, other key trading partners of the US, were also quick to voice their support.

But before Mr Bush announced his preference for Mr Zoellick on Wednesday, after getting Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to consult internationally in his search for a successor, there were calls to end the tradition of appointing an American to head the World Bank. A European customarily leads the International Monetary Fund, its sister agency.

'Yet again we see the US government brazenly inserting 'their guy' as head of the World Bank in a way that is totally out of step with contemporary norms, standards and expectations about democracy,' said Rick Rowden, of the anti-poverty charity ActionAid.

'The tradition is increasingly distasteful, especially to poor countries that are subject to the institutions' lending conditions.'

Other observers, meanwhile, point to Mr Zoellick's lack of familiarity with the affairs of developing nations. Much of his career in global economics, including the short time he spent back in the private sector as a managing director at investment bank Goldman Sachs since resigning as deputy US secretary of state last summer, has been spent dealing with weightier trade issues.

'Zoellick has no significant experience in economic development in poor countries,' said Paul Zeitz, executive director of the Global Aids Alliance.

'He has been a close friend to the brand-name pharmaceutical industry, and the bilateral trade agreements he has negotiated effectively block access to generic medication for millions of people.'

Mr Zoellick, with typical impatience, declared himself keen to get started on 'calming the waters'.

'We need to put yesterday's discord behind us and to focus on the future together,' he said. 'I believe the World Bank's best days are yet to come.'

His nomination for a five-year term marks the latest of a diverse collection of public service roles Mr Zoellick has filled. He served at the treasury from 1985 to 1988, then became undersecretary of state for economic affairs and later deputy chief of staff at the White House.

After a spell out of government during Bill Clinton's administration, lecturing at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, Mr Zoellick was picked by Mr Bush to become one of his trusted 'Vulcans', a close-knit group of foreign policy advisers, before the 2000 presidential election.

In 2001, he was appointed US trade representative, and was responsible for negotiating China's admission to the World Trade Organisation, and became a well-travelled deputy to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in 2005. She praised Mr Zoellick as her 'alter ego' on the world stage.

The Illinois native and his wife, Sherry, are protective of their private life. He has a passion for animals and is a former advisory board member of the WWF. 'It may be an exaggeration ... but Zoellick will be the most important president of the World Bank since Robert McNamara,' Mr de Tray said.

'It's going to take real leadership grounded in the confidence of the international community to put the bank on course. There's little question that it needs serious reconstruction and reform, but it needs to be seen as a long-term process.

'Mr Zoellick will have to rein in his well-known impatience while he builds the credibility he needs with the bank's staff, directors and shareholders.'

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