Picking a chief:

The World Bank goes around the globe preaching transparency, good governance and meritocracy. Yet the process to choose a new leader for the bank is devoid of much of that. Since the start, the bank’s leader has traditionally been an American, chosen in secrecy by the US president and ratified by the bank’s executive board — without any input from countries that might do business with the bank. That tradition has outlived its time. The decisions made by the bank’s president can literally mean life or death for hundreds of millions of people.

The current president, James Wolfensohn, is an Australian who obtained US citizenship to compete for the job. He emphasised the importance of local support in development projects. Good candidates would know the problems of the third world.

The world does not lack good candidates, like the former presidents Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico and Fernando Henrique Cardoso of Brazil. The signals, however, are that the Bush administration will make its choice the old-fashioned way. There are credible American candidates — Jeffrey Gar-ten of Yale, and, more fancifully, Bill Clinton and Bill Gates. One rumoured front-runner, John Taylor, a Treasury under secretary, is a bad choice for his eccentric policies but his nomination could push the bank into adopting a better selection process for the bank’s presidency. — The New York Times