A lost opportunity for IMF reform?

The International Monetary Fund executive board will complete interviews of the two leading candidates to replace Dominique Strauss-Kahn this week, with the aim of picking a new managing director by June 30. Mexican central bank chief Agustin Carstens fronted the board overnight, promising a consensus-building approach to running the institution. But given the long-standing tradition of only Europeans being selected to head the IMF, it should come as little surprise that Carstens is likely to lose out French Foreign Minister Christine Lagarde. Nonetheless, this changing of the guard has afforded the IMF the perfect opportunity to showcase its promised structural and governance reforms.