The gov­er­nors of the In­ter-Amer­i­can De­vel­op­ment Bank (IDB) have elect­ed Brazil’s Ilan Gold­fa­jn as pres­i­dent of the fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tion.

Trinidad and To­ba­go had nom­i­nat­ed Ger­ard John­son, a for­mer IDB of­fi­cial now serv­ing as a se­nior con­sul­tant to the Ja­maican fi­nance min­istry, for the post.

Ar­genti­na, Mex­i­co, Brazil and Chile had al­so nom­i­nat­ed can­di­dates to head the IDB, the largest de­vel­op­ment bank in Latin Amer­i­ca, af­ter the tur­moil of the past year se­vere­ly dam­aged morale at the in­sti­tu­tion.

Head­quar­tered in Wash­ing­ton, the IDB is a key in­vestor in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean, re­spon­si­ble for $23.4 bil­lion in fi­nan­cial com­mit­ments in 2021 and hun­dreds of in­fra­struc­ture, health and tourism projects.

Gold­fa­jn will be un­der pres­sure to work close­ly with the Unit­ed States, Eu­rope and Chi­na giv­en that all are mem­bers and may look to as­sert in­flu­ence from afar.

The IDB could be a bat­tle­ground for a geopo­lit­i­cal tus­sle over key fi­nanc­ing de­ci­sions for its mem­bers as Latin Amer­i­ca grap­ples with stub­born­ly high in­fla­tion and an eco­nom­ic slow­down.

Ar­genti­na had nom­i­nat­ed Ce­cil­ia Todesca Boc­co, the coun­try’s in­ter­na­tion­al eco­nom­ic re­la­tions sec­re­tary.

Mex­i­co nom­i­nat­ed its cen­tral bank Deputy Gov­er­nor Ger­ar­do Es­quiv­el and Chile put forth its for­mer Fi­nance Min­is­ter Nico­las Eyza­guirre.

Brazil’s out­go­ing Pres­i­dent Jair Bol­sonaro nom­i­nat­ed Gold­fa­jn, the for­mer pres­i­dent of the coun­try’s cen­tral bank and cur­rent­ly the head of the In­ter­na­tion­al Mon­e­tary Fund’s West­ern Hemi­sphere de­part­ment.

The vote fol­lowed a meet­ing of the IDB gov­er­nors, who are usu­al­ly fi­nance min­is­ters or oth­er high-rank­ing eco­nom­ic au­thor­i­ties from the bank’s 48 mem­ber coun­tries.