Brazil welcomes open IMF leadership race - RIA

...RIA-Novosti news agency as saying.

Mantega welcomed Russia's nomination of Josef Tosovsky, a former Czech premier and central bank chief, as an alternative candidate to French former finance minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who has been proposed by the European Union.

"I don't think it is right when only one candidate from the EU is proposed for the job," RIA quoted Mantega as telling reporters. "If it (the IMF) wants to represent the whole world, there should be other candidates."

Mantega said Brazil had not yet decided whom it would back. "We will listen to all proposals," RIA quoted in its dispatch, datelined Rio de Janeiro.

[MOSCOW/Reuters/Finance.cz]