Argentina withdraws its IDB candidate and calls for abstention from the US

Alberto Fernández and Gustavo Béliz, in 2019.Tomás Cuesta / GETTY

Argentina has assumed defeat.

Two days after the election of a new president for the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the Government of Alberto Fernández has decided that it will have no candidate.

Gustavo Béliz, a former bank official until 2019, got off this Thursday night from the solo career he was running against Mauricio Claver-Carone, the man chosen by Donald Trump for that position.

If there are no last minute surprises, the member countries will elect Claver-Carone this Saturday and will put an end to the tradition that for 60 years has reserved that place for a Latin American.

Buenos Aires tried until the last moment to block the victory of Claver-Carone.

For weeks he sought allies to avoid giving a quorum at the meeting, the only possible way to postpone the election until March when, he was betting, Trump was not in the White House.

He threw in the towel this week, when it was already evident that he would not be able to add the 25% of absences necessary for it.

In a statement posted on Twitter, the Executive announced his decision to "abstain from the vote that will take place next Saturday to elect the president of the Inter-American Development Bank."

He will not give his vote to the Trump candidate, but he will be present at the Assembly to be held in Washington.

Argentina has decided to abstain in the vote that will take place next Saturday to elect the president of the Inter-American Development Bank.

pic.twitter.com/hOA61f3ZWH

- Casa Rosada (@CasaRosada) September 11, 2020

With the hope of the blockade lost, Argentina has called on the rest of the countries to follow the path of abstention, in an attempt to iron out Claver-Carone's legitimacy as the new president.

“We also echo the inopportunity of holding [the Assembly], in the midst of a pandemic that has not allowed an adequate and calm debate on the future of the IDB and, on the contrary, runs the risk of deepening the division in our region ”, added the Argentine Government.

A long diplomatic battle

The election of the IDB president has always been the source of disputes, but never as much as now.

Argentina promoted the candidacy of Gustavo Béliz and Costa Rica that of former president Laura Chinchilla.

Then Trump intervened, blowing up six decades of diplomatic jurisprudence and nominating Claver-Carone.

The man from Washington quickly got the votes he needed to win.

Argentina then promoted a blocking tactic that seemed unlikely, until the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrel, urged in a letter to EU countries to support a delay in the vote as the best way out for Trump's candidate.

The possibility of Europe accompanying Argentina ended up favoring Chile and then Mexico, always under the argument that the election of a new IDB president deserved a face-to-face and not remote meeting, as imposed by the restrictions of the pandemic.

Votes in the IDB are nominal, but their weight is worth the percentage that each country represents within the institution.

Claver-Carone has a guaranteed victory thanks to the support of the United States (30% of the votes), Brazil (11.3%), Colombia (3.1%) and other Latin American countries already committed to Washington's proposal.

The key to the Argentine maneuver was to avoid meeting the minimum quorum of 75% necessary to give validity to the vote.

If all the countries of the European Union (9.3%) did not participate, added the votes of Argentina (11.3%) and Chile (3.1%), the lack of a quorum was at hand.

The position of Mexico, which has 7.2%, was yet to be defined.

Laura Chinchilla, who was presented as a consensus bet, withdrew her candidacy on Thursday of last week.

Seen in perspective, the withdrawal was the first sign that the common position against Claver-Carone was cracking, leaving Argentina's Béliz as the only possible alternative to Trump's man.

The dispute was then reduced to a game of two.

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador pledged to his Argentine counterpart, Alberto Fernández, his vote for Béliz.

She also supported the idea of postponing the vote, but it was not clear whether that included the strategy of not providing a quorum.

The confirmation that Mexico will give the number in the Assembly was announced on Thursday by Undersecretary of Finance, Gabriel Yorio, who explained to

that the effort to postpone the election was unsuccessful.

“Mexico's position was to take time to discuss [the IDB appointment], but it seems that this is not going to happen.

Apparently the vote will take place over the weekend, "said Yorio,

Without a Latin American common front, Europe did not make a move either, because it never intended to become an arbitrator in the Latin American dispute.

On Thursday night, Argentina assumed defeat and withdrew from its candidate.

"There has not been a frank and common position of the countries opposed to the appointment of Claver-Carone," says a source involved in the process from minute zero,

“The feeling is that we have been moving in a circle.

Since the US presented a candidate, we knew it was going to be very difficult, but the disappointment is enormous: we deserve what is going to happen.

The region is solely responsible: we have sought it out ”.

Claver-Carone no longer has obstacles towards the presidency.

Trump's advance on the IDB will soon be consummated.