A source from the bank confirmed to Efe that all the governors of the Assembly who have voted to date have decided that the American of Cuban origin should leave the institution.
The announcement has not been officially confirmed by the bank, but the source assures Efe that it will be formalized in the next few hours.
So far, more than 90% of the members of the Assembly (composed of ministers of Economy, Finance or directors of central banks of the 48 member countries of the IDB) have voted, a sufficient majority for the executive board to make their dismissal official.
Since last Friday, the governors – who are the ones who approve the appointment and removal of the president – have been voting on whether they want Claver-Carone to leave his position for having broken the bank’s rules, which prohibit intimate relationships between superiors with people who depend directly on them.
The removal comes after an investigation carried out after an anonymous complaint, a case that was uncovered last week, when an investigative agency presented a report to the members of the institution’s executive board and they asked the Assembly of Governors for their dismissal.
The report, which was leaked to some media, was later presented to Claver-Carone himself, who continues to maintain his innocence and assures that there is no evidence to confirm the relationship.
In statements to Efe after learning of the scandal, the manager criticized this investigation, which is “clearly fabricated information,” he said.
According to the IDB source consulted by Efe, the report clearly demonstrates the president’s personal relationship with a worker, who received large salary increases in recent years.
“It is clear that the relationship is fully proven, even if he says no,” said the source, who cited some details that demonstrate the affair.
Among them, the existence of a paper tablecloth written and signed by both, a declaration of love that they wrote in a restaurant in Colombia during a work trip and that was calligraphically assessed by the research firm.
A CONTROVERSIAL APPOINTMENT
Claver-Carone (Miami, 1975) has been in office since October 1, 2020 and he arrived surrounded by controversy after being appointed by the now former US president Donald Trump (2017-2021); because of how close his nomination was to the US election (which Trump ended up losing); and also for being the first leader of the institution that does not come from Latin America.
Despite the fact that the vote to elect the president of the IDB is presumably secret, the support of countries such as Colombia, Brazil, Bolivia or Uruguay was public, as well as criticism from others such as Argentina, Mexico or Chile.
Together with the European Union (EU), which has 13 member countries, critics pushed to postpone the IDB elections until March 2021, in order for them to take place after the US elections in November 2020.
However, the United States controls 30% of the voting power in the institution and had many countries in the region on its side. The vote took place with Claver-Carone as the only candidate, endorsed by El Salvador, Guyana, Haiti, Israel, Paraguay and the US.
The public career of Claver-Carone, doctor of Laws at the Catholic University of America, also began with the controversy over the flag.
He was known in Washington for his old blog “Capitol Hill Cubans”, from where he fiercely criticized the policy of opening up to Cuba and bet against the Venezuelan government, an attitude that served to connect with the hard wing of the Republicans.
Director of the Cuban-American Center for Democracy and other related institutions, he always raised his voice in his defense of the embargo on Cuba and to describe the policy towards the island of Trump’s predecessor, Democratic President Barack Obama (2009- 2017).
Mauricio Claver-Carone’s name began to become more widely known in November 2016, when then-president-elect Donald Trump appointed him as part of his team tasked with organizing the transition at the Obama administration’s Treasury Department.
After the appointment of the Republican, he held various positions in his Government, including that of adviser to the Treasury and to Trump himself. He is also known for creating the United States Government’s maximum pressure campaign against the Maduro regime in Venezuela.
Claver-Carone was to have been in office until September 2025, but now, once the IDB makes the news official, a 45-day period will open in which countries can propose candidates to replace a man who does not has managed to escape controversy. EFE
