SINGAPORE: IMF delegates vote on quota reforms as World Bank committee meets in Singapore while opposition politician and protests rains on IMF parade in Jakarta

Delegates gathered at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank annual meetings in Singapore on Monday (SEP 18) to vote on quota voting reforms that have divided the 184-member IMF. The delegates first attended a World Bank development committee meeting chaired by its president Paul Wolfowitz. Also at the meeting was IMF managing director Rodrigo Rato and finance ministers from various countries including Jin Renqing from China and Sri Mulyani Indrawati from Indonesia. The meeting is being held at Singapore's Suntec convention centre as light drizzle and dark clouds with tight security kept traffic sparse outside the centre. India was at the forefront in objecting to the blueprint to overhaul the governance of the 184-member IMF to better reflect the growing clout of emerging economies. The proposal is almost sure to be approved when votes from the IMF's member nations are tallied on Monday. But the blueprint has exposed deep fault lines at an agency struggling to redefine its role in a world where fewer countries are turning to it for emergency loans and big countries are more frequently ignoring its policy advice. The risk for the IMF is that lingering unhappiness over the redistribution of "chairs and shares" could further erode its standing in the Third World, where critics already resent what they see as the fund's high-handed policy advice. The overhaul aims to correct the under-representation of nations like China, which has fewer votes than Belgium or the Netherlands even though its economy, the world's fourth-largest, is twice the combined size of the two European countries. The plan will immediately boost the quotas, or membership subscriptions, of China, South Korea, Mexico and Turkey, to be followed by a second stage of broader reforms. IMF quotas largely determine not only how much a country may borrow from the fund but its share of votes in the institution India, Argentina, Brazil and Egypt, unhappy that their power in the world economy will not be reflected in their share of IMF votes, issued a statement calling the proposal disturbing. Away from the meeting, a dozen protesters from the Jubilee Debt campaign held a candlelight vigil denouncing conditions attached to aid and debt relief to poor countries. The activists, wearing t-shirts that said "Cut the Strings", bound their faces and hands with strings and held candles as others held banners against conditions that they said damage democracy, hurt the poorest people, delay justice and prolong poverty. "Please give out the message that we must stop imposing these economic policy conditions on the poorest countries in the world as part of their aid and debt relief," one activist told journalists and photographers crowded around the official demonstration zone in the convention centre. The activists also chanted "Free the poor" and "Cut the Strings" during the brief protest. Meanwhile, Chee Soon Juan, leader of the Singapore Democratic Party, held a prolonged stand-off with police at the weekend over his right to protest Singaporeans right to enjoy freedom of speech and assembly. Chee, who wanted to raise international awareness of Singapore's curbs on freedom of speech, was blocked by police at the weekend when he tried to lead a protest march to the convention centre where the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank are holding their annual meetings. The meetings, which Singapore hoped would allow it to showcase its financial industry and tourist attractions to the world, have already been marred by a row between the IMF-World Bank and Singapore over the city-state's refusal to allow a number of civil rights activists into the country. Now Chee's stand-off with the police is grabbing headlines worldwide. "We are very tired but we are very encouraged as well by the the fact that it is very important that we stand our ground and that we persist and not back down in the face of intimidation and bullying by the government," Chee said on Monday (September 18) about his attempt to protest. Chee, a 44-year-old neuropsychologist, is Singapore's most outspoken opposition politician. He believes that the only way to make a difference in the tightly controlled city-state is through civil disobedience. Protests are rare in Singapore and public gatherings of more than four people require a police permit. Chee's past attempts at speaking in public have led to a series of fines and jail terms. He is unable to stand for parliament because he has been declared a bankrupt after Singapore's leaders sued him for defamation. At the last election, in May, Chee's party won 23 percent of the vote in the wards it contested but did not win any seats because of Singapore's first-past-the-post electoral system. "It is a learning process and we really hope that the government will learn from this experience," said Chee, the father of three young children. When Chee and a handful of supporters assembled on Saturday for their rally and march, police asked people in the crowd for their names and reasons for attending, and filmed those present. Chee has had several run-ins with Singapore's leaders. He was slapped with a defamation suit in 2001 for accusations against former prime ministers Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong, and was declared bankrupt as he was unable to pay damages of 500,000 Singapore dollars. Last week, Singapore's High Court ruled that Chee and his sister had defamed Lee Kuan Yew and his son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, in another case. No damages have been announced yet. Chee has served three jail terms -- a total of about two months -- for speaking publicly without a permit. The U.S. State Department says the threat of libel has stifled political opinion in Singapore, but Singapore's leaders say such actions are necessary to protect their reputations. Lee Kuan Yew, whose People's Action Party has ruled Singapore ever since independence in 1965, has described the country's opposition politicians as "riff-raff" who aren't fit to rule.

ITN Source | September 18, 2006

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