PARIS: Christine Lagarde, seeking support in emerging economies for her bid to become the next IMF chief, will visit Saudi Arabia and Egypt at the weekend, the French finance minister announced on twitter Tuesday. "Here are my two new destinations after China — I'll be in Riyadh on Saturday and Cairo on Sunday!" she wrote. On Tuesday, Lagarde's global roadshow was in New Delhi where she failed to win public backing from India for her bid to succeed her disgraced compatriot Dominique Strauss-Kahn as the head of the International Monetary Fund. Strauss-Kahn on Monday pleaded not guilty in a New York court to attempted rape and other charges. Commentators had predicted before Lagarde's arrival that India would be unlikely to back her, preferring instead to focus on trying to work with allies in the emerging world to form a consensus on their own candidate. Lagarde's rival at present is Mexico's central bank chief Agustin Carstens, who will visit India on Friday as part of his own whistle-stop tour. The French finance minister will meet several African counterparts in Lisbon on Friday on the margins of the annual meeting of the African Development Bank. So far she has received support from Europe and, according to France, the United States, Russia, Japan and Canada. Friday is the deadline to join the IMF succession race.
