Alicia Bárcena, former executive secretary of ECLAC. INMA FLORES
Alicia Bárcena, chosen by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador as the Mexican candidate to preside over the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), announced on Wednesday that she is withdrawing from the race.
The biologist and diplomat, who currently serves as ambassador to Chile, publishes the decision in a brief message on social networks, in which she only attributes the decision to "personal reasons."
"I have communicated with the president [López Obrador] who has welcomed with affection and understanding my personal reasons for which I have asked him to withdraw my candidacy to the IDB," Bárcena said.
The diplomat herself became the highest-ranking Mexican official in international institutions in 2006, when she was appointed Chief of Staff of the United Nations (UN).
I have communicated with the President @lopezobrador_ who has welcomed with affection and understanding my personal reasons for which I have asked him to withdraw my candidacy to the @el_BID. I appreciate the support received by @R_Ramirez_O @m_ebrard and his teams in this process.
– Alicia Bárcena (@aliciabarcena) November 9, 2022
On October 27, a congresswoman from the Republican Party in the United States, María Elvira Salazar, sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen asking that the country vote against Bárcena's candidacy.
“She is a sympathizer of communism,” accused Salazar, since, as executive secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), she spoke positively about Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez, socialist leaders in Cuba and Venezuela.
The weight of the vote for each candidate for the IDB list, which will take place on November 20, varies among the member countries.
The US has 30% of the total vote.
The deadline to register a candidate is Friday.
The Bloomberg agency reported that the deputy governor of the Bank of Mexico, Gerardo Esquivel, will be the new Mexican candidate, citing confidential sources.
His term at the central bank ends at the end of the year.
The Mexican government has not announced a new candidate.
For its part, the Brazilian government nominated Ilan Goldfajn, former governor of the central bank and current director of the Western Hemisphere department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the economy minister announced on October 24.
The former president of the IDB, Mauricio Claver-Carone, was removed at the end of September by the institution's board of directors after an internal report revealed that he had a relationship with an employee, to whom he offered preferential treatment, which is in violation of its internal policies.
His appointment, by then President Donald Trump, was controversial, since the IDB had always been chaired by a Latin American.
The development bank is the largest in Latin America and registered nearly 24,000 million dollars in financing in 2021.
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