JAKAR­TA/CAIRO-French Fi­nance Min­is­ter Chris­tine La­garde stretched her lead in the race for the IMF's top job yes­ter­day when In­done­sia be­came the first big de­vel­op­ing econ­o­my to back her pub­licly. An 11th-hour chal­lenge from Is­rael's re­spect­ed cen­tral bank chief Stan­ley Fis­ch­er, an­nounced on Sat­ur­day, looked a long shot. Is­rael's fi­nance min­is­ter con­ced­ed that the pol­i­tics of the suc­ces­sion bat­tle did not fa­vor the IMF's for­mer num­ber-two of­fi­cial. In­done­sia, like many emerg­ing economies, was pre­vi­ous­ly non-com­mit­tal about its choice for the next boss of the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund as South­east Asian cap­i­tals dis­cussed whether to put for­ward a can­di­date from the re­gion.

La­garde has se­cured the sup­port of the Eu­ro­pean Union plus a hand­ful of small­er coun­tries but needs to se­cure back­ing from big­ger emerg­ing economies. On Sun­day, she won a per­son­al mes­sage of ap­proval from her op­po­site num­ber in Jakar­ta. "Per­son­al­ly I sup­port France," Fi­nance Min­is­ter Agus Mar­to­war­do­jo said at an eco­nom­ic fo­rum in Jakar­ta. "She is a very pro­fes­sion­al per­son. She is smart in in­ter­act­ing be­tween in­sti­tu­tions, and has high in­tegri­ty and skills." Sev­er­al large emerg­ing economies have been crit­i­cal of the long­stand­ing tra­di­tion of the IMF be­ing led by Eu­ro­peans. But they have re­frained from back­ing Mex­i­can cen­tral bank gov­er­nor Agustin Carstens, the on­ly well-known chal­lenger from an emerg­ing econ­o­my un­til Fis­ch­er's an­nounce­ment.

The French fi­nance min­is­ter, who is on a world tour to drum up sup­port, said dur­ing a Sun­day stop in Cairo she had got "very af­fir­ma­tive" sup­port from Egypt. In a fur­ther boost for La­garde, the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates de­clared its sup­port for her on Sun­day.

FIS­CH­ER'S SUR­PRISE MOVE

The search to fill the top job at the world's main res­cue-lend­ing agency be­gan af­ter French­man Do­minique Strauss-Kahn re­signed in May, charged with the at­tempt­ed rape of a New York ho­tel maid, which he de­nies. The move by Fis­ch­er was a sur­prise. At 67, he is two years past the age lim­it for ap­pli­cants and the IMF would have to change those rules for him to stay in the race. Seek­ing to cap­i­talise on re­spect for his work as a deputy IMF man­ag­ing di­rec­tor be­tween 1994 and 2001 and as a for­mer World Bank chief econ­o­mist, Fis­ch­er played up his ex­per­tise ad­van­tage over La­garde, a for­mer cor­po­rate lawyer who does not have a for­mal eco­nom­ics back­ground.

Fis­ch­er told the Wall Street Jour­nal that when se­ri­ous eco­nom­ic prob­lems arise, IMF staffers of­ten of­fer con­flict­ing ad­vice. "With­out hav­ing that train­ing, it's very hard to know, who's right and who's wrong. You have to have a frame­work to think through the prob­lems." Ear­li­er on Sun­day, Is­raeli Fi­nance Min­is­ter Yu­val Steinitz said Fis­ch­er's "chances are not great" due to pol­i­tics and his age. "Were it pure­ly pro­fes­sion­al one would be hard pressed to find a bet­ter per­son than Fis­ch­er," Steinitz told army ra­dio.

Fis­ch­er was born in Zam­bia and holds both Is­raeli and US cit­i­zen­ship. The for­mer could pose a prob­lem for Arab coun­tries and the lat­ter be­cause the IMF job nor­mal­ly goes to a Eu­ro­pean on the grounds that a US na­tion­al al­ready gets to fill an­oth­er post, the top job at the World Bank. (Reuters)