Colombian Sergio Díaz-Granados elected next CAF president

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The Colombian candidate beat Argentine Christian Asinelli in the vote for executive president of the Development Bank of Latin America (CAF), the second largest in the region, for the 2021-2026 term.

The vote ended 17 to 0 (with two votes, Venezuela abstained) as a result of the agreement reached by the candidates.

The election was held in a private semi-presential meeting at the National Palace in Mexico City, seat of the Mexican government and residence of President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, months after the resignation of Peruvian Luis Carranza.

CAF, formerly the Andean Development Corporation, is an organization comprising 19 member countries (17 Latin American countries, as well as Spain and Portugal, and 13 private banks), headquartered in Caracas and responsible for financing development projects and promoting regional integration in Latin America.

Díaz-Granados (Santa Marta, 1968), ex-Minister of Commerce, Industry and Tourism between 2010 and 2013, is the current executive director for Colombia at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), while Asinelli is the Undersecretary of International Financial Relations for Development in the government of Argentina president Alberto Fernández.

The next president of CAF, considered the second largest development bank in the region after the IDB, needed at least 10 votes and will be eligible for re-election in 5 years.

Díaz-Granados entered the race with the explicit support of countries such as Brazil, Chile, Ecuador and Uruguay. Asinelli’s candidacy had the announced support of countries such as Bolivia, Venezuela, the Dominican Republic and Portugal.

During its 51 years of operation, this Development Bank, little known to the general public, has become an essential financial player for development in the region, along with the IDB. Now, its president’s appointment will be key, as he will be the one to decide the CAF’s role in the region’s economic reactivation and development in the aftermath of the pandemic.

The Development Bank of Latin America is not usually in the spotlight in the Southern Cone because of its Andean DNA. However, this renewal process of authorities is undergoing a peculiar dynamic in the region that began when Peruvian Luis Carranza resigned due to accusations of labor harassment. Since then, CAF has been under an interim presidency.

Carranza reproached the CAF board for not supporting the appointment of Bernardo Requena as president in Country Programs and denounced that the Argentine directors asked him to appoint as vice-president a person, whose identity he did not disclose, who “did not meet the requirements for the position.”

During Carranza’s term in office, accusations of massive dismissals and labor harassment against him surfaced, as denounced by Alejandra Claros, the organization’s former Secretariat Coordinator.

A Peruvian national, Luis Carranza Ugarte had been elected as CAF’s executive president at an extraordinary meeting of the institution’s board of directors on December 13, 2016. Carranza was Peru’s Minister of Economy and Finance on two occasions, as well as a prominent economist who served at the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Source: Infobae