Mahathir backs Mr Yen for 'eurocentric' IMF<\/p>\n
TOKYO (AFP): Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has
\nendorsed Japan's bid for the top job at the International
\nMonetary Fund (IMF) in a renewal of his attacks on Western
\neconomic hegemony.<\/p>\n
In his monthly Japanese newspaper column published Monday,
\nMahathir described Eisuke Sakakibara, a former vice finance
\nminister for international affairs, as broadminded.<\/p>\n
Mahathir said Sakakibara, who earned the tag of \"Mr Yen\" for
\nhis sway over currency markets during his time at the finance
\nministry, \"does not confine himself to narrow needs.\"<\/p>\n
\"The IMF hasn't done a good job. It is too rigid and
\neurocentric,\" the prime minister wrote in the Mainichi Daily
\nNews. \"It is not looking at the world as a whole but from the
\nview of Europe and the United States.<\/p>\n
\"It cannot understand Asian ways. For the IMF there is only
\none way. We need to have a person with a broader world view, not
\nconfined to just one ethnic group.<\/p>\n
\"Sakakibara has enough experience. He has a Western education
\nand is very familiar with Europeans and Americans, as well as
\nAsians,\" Mahathir wrote.<\/p>\n
Since quitting his senior bureaucratic post last July,
\nSakakibara has been working as a professor at Tokyo's elite Keio
\nUniversity.<\/p>\n
In a straw poll by the IMF executive board in Washington last
\nThursday, Sakakibara won only nine percent of the vote to choose
\na successor to Michel Camdessus as the Fund's managing director.<\/p>\n
Despite U.S. opposition, Germany's deputy finance minister
\nCaio Koch-Weser finished first with 43 percent of the vote,
\nfollowed by interim IMF managing director Stanley Fischer, a US
\nnational, with nearly 12 percent.<\/p>\n
Japanese Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa hinted after the
\nvote that Sakakibara might have to pull out of the race.<\/p>",
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