Soros Crony Bails on World Bank Candidacy to Support Obama Nominee

President Obama has nominated Dartmouth College President Jim Yong Kim as his candidate for the Presidency of the World Bank. Economist and George Soros crony Jeffrey Sachs pulled his name from consideration as soon as Kim’s candidacy was announced. Sachs announced on twitter this morning that “Jim Kim is a superb nominee for WB. I support him 100%. I thank all who supported me and know they'll be very pleased with today's news.”

The media love Sachs. Will they love Kim too? Both Sachs and Kim have ties to Soros, and Sachs’s ties are such that an endorsement from Sachs can almost be viewed as an endorsement from Soros himself. Kim himself once said that “The high point [of his career] was when we started receiving support, first from George Soros who gave us our first grants [to battle tuberculosis]”.

Andrew Trotman of Britain’s The Telegraph concluded his article reviewing the nominee’s career that “Jim Yong Kim seems perfect for the role.” Trotman probably came to that conclusion after watching the candidate’s rapping skills [1].

Kim served as director of the World Health Organization’s HIV/AIDS department from 2004 to 2006, after serving as advisor to the WHO director-general. He also cofounded Partners of Health, which is a global non-profit organization whose mission is to provide healthcare to impoverished nations.

Two of the organizations Kim is involved with, Partners in Health and the WHO, have received $1.8 million and $1.4 million from Soros, respectively, since 2000.Sachs’s organizations received $50 million from Soros for the U.N. Millennium Project, an anti-world poverty initiative. Sachs also sits on the advisory board of INET, the Institute for New Economic Thinking, which Soros funds, whose goal is to restructure the global economy. Add to this

Before President Obama’s announced his candidate for the World Bank Presidency, CNN, Reuters, BBC, the Huffington Post, Aljazeera, The Guardian and the Washington Post all wrote up favorable sounding reviews of Sachs’s candidacy, with none of them mentioning his close partnership with media mogul and billionaire George Soros. Surprisingly, the Soros-backed Huffington post was most critical of Sachs’s campaign, although not of Sachs himself, mentioning that his candidacy was a bit of a long shot. They were right about that.

BBC’s Caroline Hepker had previously stated that even if Sachs did not get the job, his candidacy would still be the best thing to happen to the World Bank in years. “Indeed, even if Prof. Sachs fails, it could prove a turning point in what many see as a stale process - even if the opportunity for change does not arise for another five years.”

Sachs is an outspoken supporter of the Obama Administration, despite not having received the nomination. He is also the director of the Earth Institute, an organization focused on combating climate change.

The two other candidates currently waiting for confirmation are Nigerian Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, awaiting nomination from South Africa, and Colombian finance minister Jose Antonio Ocampo, awaiting nomination from Brazil. Traditionally, the head of the World Bank has always been an American, making President Obama’s nomination for the position the most likely contender for the job.

Current World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick’s term is up at the end of June this year.