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Mauricio Claver-Carone in January
Photo: Juan Karita / AP
With Mauricio Claver-Carone, the candidate proposed by US President Donald Trump has been elected as the new President of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).
Claver-Carone, Cuban exile and Trump advisor for Latin America, received the support of the majority of member countries, according to a message from the IDB.
The IDB is the largest donor of development projects in Latin America.
The nomination of the hardliner Claver-Carone caused an enormous stir.
It is the first time in the 61-year history of the development bank that an American has taken over the management.
Claver-Carone is scheduled to take up the post on October 1st.
Since it was founded in 1959, the chairman of the IDB has always come from Latin America.
Trump's decision to nominate a US citizen caused criticism from several states in the region and the European Union.
Several countries wanted to postpone elections
According to the Reuters news agency, Argentina, Mexico, Chile and Costa Rica initially tried to postpone the election.
But they did not find a sufficient majority for this.
The US was said to want to gain influence with the nomination of Claver-Carone in a region in which China is getting stronger.
Countries like Argentina wanted to prevent Claver-Carone from being elected, among other things to keep control of an institution whose loans for governments and state-owned companies will be particularly important because of the severe economic consequences of the corona crisis in Latin America.
Nevertheless, Claver-Carone was the only candidate after the former Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla had recently withdrawn her candidacy.
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kko / dpa / Reuters
