Electing the new IMF head may be a referendum on big banks.

Yves Smith has an interesting take on the maneuvering to name Dominque Strauss-Kahn's successor as head of the International Monetary Fund. Europeans are arguing that it makes special sense now to continue the tradition of having the IMF president be European because it appears the IMF's biggest near-term challenges are in Europe. However, the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India and China) are making more than the usual amount of noise claiming it's their turn. Smith says that behind the scenes it's really about how diligent the IMF will be in promoting the interests of the biggest international banks:

Crudely speaking, the advanced economies are far more bank friendly than their “emerging” counterparts. China is actively hostile to neoclassical economics and unfettered capital markets. Efforts to make China safe for investment bankers have been rebuffed. India sailed though the global financial crisis relatively well by having capital controls and heavily regulated banks. Pretty much any country that has taken IMF medicine (such as the countries caught in the Asian crisis, like Indonesia, South Korea, and Thailand) also sees the IMF as an enforcer for major capital market firms and international banks. Japan, as a military protectorate of the US, has limited degrees of freedom. Even so, during the Asian crisis, it pushed for a bailout within the region (ie, outside the IMF) and that idea was quickly slapped down by the US.

I can't see much doubt about how this comes out.  Europe and the US together have enough voting power to impose their choice, and I can't see any possibility that Obama will go against Wall Street on this. Yves's post quotes from this Guardian article.

[ADDED at 10:55 a.m.]  Joseph Stilitz agrees in The Telegraph it's largely about the banks:

Behind the scenes there is a battle – between those who put the interests of the banks first and those who put the interests of the people first. Debt restructuring would affect the balance sheet of the banks. The longer restructuring is postponed, the more debt moves onto the books of the public, the more the banks are protected.

Stiglitz also says DSK made important strides in reforming the thinking inside the IMF and that it's important to maintain those departures from neoliberal economic doctrine.