DM Monitoring
BUENOS AIRES: Bolivia’s former president Evo Morales on Sunday rejected the nomination of a U.S. official to preside over the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), a lending institution traditionally led by a Latin American.
“Supporting Trump’s candidate for the IDB presidency is an attack against the interests of the country and a betrayal of the region,” said Morales, who was forced out by the opposition and now lives in exile in neighboring Argentina.
“The IDB will cease to be a development bank and will have a disastrous role, like that of the IMF (International Monetary Fund),” should the United States succeed in placing its representative at the helm of the organization, Morales said via Twitter.
The proposed candidate is Mauricio Claver-Carone, senior director for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the U.S. National Security Council, a key architect of U.S. President Donald Trump’s policy toward Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua.
Other regional voices have also rejected the nomination, including Argentina, whose Minister of Foreign Affairs Felipe Sola instead proposed Argentine politician Gustavo Beliz to head the IDB.
“The figure of Claver-Carone is not questioned from a technical perspective, it is questioned from a political perspective, because it expresses the most hardline U.S. vision of the Americas,” Sola said on July 16.
A slew of regional ex-presidents, including those from Chile, Uruguay, Colombia and Mexico, as well as Spain’s government, issued a statement opposing the U.S. nominee and calling for a delay in the election of the IDB’s next head, which is due to take place on Sept. 12 and 13.
