Unknown takes top German spot

2004-07-01 14:45

Berlin - Many Germans had likely not heard of Horst Koehler until a few months ago, but on Thursday, the 61-year-old former director of the International Monetary Fund was elected their president.

"Horst Who?", Germany's biggest-selling newspaper Bild asked recently. "Mr Numbers", answered its most respected magazine, Der Spiegel.

A man who has spent all his career in national and international finance, Koehler stepped down as head of the IMF earlier this year after four years to focus on his campaign for the presidency.

He was asked to stand by the Christian Union alliance and its liberal FDP allies as a compromise candidate after dissension over their first choice of veteran politician Wolfgang Schaeuble.

During his campaigning he irked some conservatives by labelling the United States as "arrogant" over Iraq and by backing the principle - if not always the tactics - of the biting social and economic reforms being carried out by Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's centre-left government.

Another of his key themes has been to urge Germans not to allow themselves to be trapped in "navel-gazing" over their economic problems.

He said he "doesn't want to be a Rambo" but simply "the president of every German."

The IMF position was a prestigious one for this trained economist and fell into his lap in 2000 after the United States rejected another German.

Known as a workaholic, he was as likely to criticise the United States for its trade deficit as he was to blast rich countries for failing to open up their markets to the developing world.

His most important dossier was undoubtedly helping to manage the financial crisis in Argentina.

- AFP