Ex-Singapore finance chief Tharman Shanmugaratnam shortlisted for IMF top job, but will Europeans hand over the title?

The IMF succession race was triggered last week when Christine Lagarde was nominated to succeed Mario Draghi as European Central Bank chief

A stalwart in Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s cabinet, Tharman has held high ranking roles in the global body

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Singapore’s ex-finance tsar Tharman Shanmugaratnam has been shortlisted for the IMF’s top job. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 8:00am, 9 Jul 2019Updated: 10:44am, 9 Jul 2019

Singapore’s ex-finance tsar Tharman Shanmugaratnam may be eminently qualified to succeed Christine Lagarde as head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), but few among his admirers believe the global body will break from tradition with a non-European chief.

The IMF succession race was triggered last week when Lagarde was nominated to succeed Mario Draghi as European Central Bank chief. If confirmed, Lagarde – IMF chief since 2011 – will start the new job at the end of October, meaning her current employer would need to find a replacement before that.

Since its inception in 1945, all 11 IMF chiefs have been of European descent – part of a so-called duopoly whereby the IMF is led by a European and the World Bank by an American.

But in what could be a sign the world body may be open to change, 62-year-old Tharman has been shortlisted for the IMF job, according to several media outlets.

IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde at International Monetary Fund Headquarters in Washington. Photo: AFP

A stalwart in Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s cabinet, Tharman held concurrently from 2011 to 2015 the chairmanship of the IMF’s key policy steering group, the International Monetary and Financial Committee. He was the first Asian to hold that position.