RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Despite announcing on Thursday that he was leaving the Ministry of Education to head to Washington to become an Executive Director of the World Bank, economist Abraham Weintraub may have his appointment barred inside and outside the institution.
Members of the bank are mobilizing to prevent Weintraub from taking office as an executive director of the 189-country board of representatives with shares in the institution, according to sources close to the organization.
In Brazil, a note to shareholder countries from a group led by diplomat and ex-Minister of Finance Rubens Ricupero alerts shareholders about the nomination.
Ricupero explained that he asked a friend to collect signatures because he considers the nomination ‘an attack on the very little that remained of Brazil’s external credibility’. In his opinion, the government destroyed the soft-power heritage acquired by the country in decades of proactive action in the environment, human rights, indigenous peoples, and reform of the international order.
What was left was a remnant of the competence and expertise of Brazilian representatives in world financial bodies such as the World Bank, the IMF (International Monetary Fund), and the IDB (Inter-American Development Bank).
“Now, with the nomination of an unqualified and right-wing extremist, even this remnant will be lost. The only hope is that the other (eight) countries represented by Brazil’s director in the World Bank, our “constituency”, as the organization calls it, will oppose this absurd nomination. Or that the Bank’s own management, through its human rights values defense instruments, will oppose it in the name of decency”, declared the ex-Minister who was once Brazil’s representative in the United Nations (UN) and the country’s ambassador to the United States.
In the letter sent to the embassies of the World Bank member countries, Ricupero and his supporters “strongly” advise against Weintraub’s appointment and allege that there would be risks of “irreparable damage” to their countries and to the institution. “Firstly, Weintraub’s resignation from his position is the apex of a destructive and poisonous environment that he has caused throughout Brazil’s political system,” reads the text.
Contradiction
The nomination for the World Bank of someone like Weintraub, with an ideological profile and with no diplomatic background, represents a contradiction within the multilateral organization, always criticized by Bolsonarists and which requires balanced people for negotiations among peers, including one of the former Minister’s greatest dislikes: China, one of the bank’s main shareholders.
“China is the World Bank’s third-largest shareholder and holds a very prominent position on the Executive Board,” said economist Monica de Bolle, a senior researcher at the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE) in Washington, and who has worked at the International Monetary Fund (IMF). In her opinion, Weintraub “will not pass” the scrutiny of the bank’s shareholders.
The position with which President Jair Bolsonaro intends to “reward” the controversial and disaffected ex-Minister, with an annual salary of US$250,000, was held by a current director of Brazil’s Central Bank, Fábio Kanczuk. It has been vacant since last year and the current term expires on October 31st.
The appointment of Brazil’s representative to fill the World Bank’s Executive Board is traditionally made by the Ministry of Economy, which only confirmed the appointment on Thursday evening, hours after Weintraub’s video announcing he was leaving the Ministry of Education to move to the United States with his family and Capitu, his dog.
Buffer mandate
Questioned, the World Bank advised in a note that it has received official communication from the Brazilian authorities on Weintraub representing Brazil and the other countries of its group (constituency) in the institution’s Board, but his name still needs to be approved for the remainder of the term. “If elected by his constituency, he will serve the remainder of the current term ending on October 31st, 2020, when a new appointment and a new election will be required,” the statement said.
As a result, Weintraub may not even be able to take his seat during Kanczuk’s buffer mandate, let alone have his name approved by the remaining countries, given that they were not previously consulted because of the mess surrounding his nomination, ultimately assessed as a means of shifting the focus away from the arrest of Bolsonaro’s longtime friend, ex-police officer Fabrício Queiroz.
The seat represented by Brazil on the World Bank’s Executive Board comprises the countries of Colombia, Ecuador, Trinidad and Tobago, the Philippines, Suriname, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Panama. The practice is that the name for the Board of Directors is submitted to the other shareholders in the group led by Brazil for their pre-approval, and then officially announced.
Should Weintraub be barred, it would be an international embarrassment for the country, as this is not usually the case. According to de Bollie, even if he manages to be approved for the buffer mandate – which is more likely – he will hardly be able to remain in office once new elections are held.
In the statement confirming the nomination, the Ministry of Economy pointed out that Weintraub has “over 20 years of experience as an executive in the financial market,” serving as chief economist and director of Banco Votorantim, as well as CEO of Votorantim Broker in Brazil and Votorantim Securities in the United States and England. Brazil’s appointment to the executive board is for a position as a member of the bank’s board, rather than an employee.
Although it is uncommon for a name appointed by the Brazilian government to be barred by the World Bank, sources also recall that the ex-Minister will need to be appraised by the Bank Information Center (BIC) in order to ensure that he does not have complaints of racism on his résumé, before taking on the position of director.
In April, the Federal Supreme Court (STF) launched an investigation into Weintraub for an alleged crime of racism against the Chinese.