NEW YORK—Dominique Strauss-Kahn on Wednesday resigned as head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) amid explosive accusations he had sexually attacked a housekeeper in a Manhattan hotel room.
“It is with infinite sadness that I feel compelled today to present to the executive board my resignation from my post of managing director of the IMF,” Strauss-Kahn said in a statement dated Wednesday and released early Thursday by the IMF.
“I think at this time first of my wife—whom I love more than anything—of my children, of my family, of my friends,” he added.
Calls for his resignation have mounted since Saturday when Strauss-Kahn was taken off an Air France plane at Kennedy International Airport and arrested in connection with the accusations.
In issuing his resignation, Strauss-Kahn said, “I want to say that I deny with the greatest possible firmness all of the allegations that have been made against me.”
News of his arrest produced an earthquake of shock, outrage, disbelief and embarrassment throughout France, where Strauss-Kahn is touted to be the strongest candidate to oust President Nicolas Sarkozy.
On Thursday, French media quickly announced Strauss-Kahn’s resignation and underscored that he was leaving to focus on proving his innocence.
Commentators, however, said it was unusual for Strauss-Kahn to use personal language, including references to his wife, family and colleagues at the IMF.
Jockeying
In its statement on Wednesday night, the IMF said John Lipsky would remain as acting managing director of the agency.
Even so, Strauss-Kahn’s resignation has set off jockeying for his replacement.
The French finance minister, Christine Lagarde, is considered a leading candidate to succeed Strauss-Kahn, her friend and colleague.
Lagarde’s straight talk has helped burnish her reputation as one of Europe’s most influential ambassadors in the world of international finance.
According to analysts, Lagarde’s main competitors is Kemal Dervis, a former finance minister of Turkey.
Dervis is credited with rescuing the Turkish economy after it was hit by a devastating financial crisis in 2001, in part by securing a multibillion-dollar loan from the IMF. Before that, Dervis worked at the World Bank for 24 years.
Strauss-Kahn was a leading member of France’s Socialist Party when he was chosen by the newly elected Sarkozy, a conservative, to be the head of the IMF, a job that has traditionally been given to a European.
Tarnished reputation
While at the helm of the IMF, Strauss-Kahn, an economist and politician, had used the European debt crisis to seize, somewhat audaciously, a new and prominent role for the world body.
Trying to shed its old image as a hidebound policy task master, the IMF refashioned itself as the investment bank of multilateral institutions—doing whatever it took to get the deal done.
Although Strauss-Kahn has received generally high marks for his stewardship of the IMF, his reputation was tarnished in 2008 by an affair with a Hungarian economist who was a subordinate there.
The IMF then decided to stand by Strauss-Kahn despite concluding that he had shown poor judgment. He issued an apology to IMF employees and his wife, Anne Sinclair, an American-born French journalist.
Strauss-Kahn’s extramarital affairs have long been considered an open secret.
This time, however, the legal charges against him—which include attempted rape, forced oral sex and an effort to sequester another person against her will—are of an entirely different magnitude, even in France and elsewhere in continental Europe, where voters have generally shown more lenience than Americans toward the sexual behavior of prominent politicians, most notably the escapades of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi of Italy.
Suspicions of a set up
The scandal also has stirred a larger debate on French society’s attitudes toward sexual misconduct by powerful men.
Still, suspicions are widespread in France that Strauss-Kahn may have been set up. Strauss-Kahn, a former French finance minister, had been expected to declare his candidacy for the French presidency soon.
On Wednesday, a French poll showed that 57 percent of people surveyed think Strauss was “the victim of a plot.” Seventy percent of respondents from his Socialist Party also agree with the theory.
As Strauss-Kahn’s lawyers are renewing efforts to obtain his release on bail, France is recalculating the impact on the political landscape.
As the country heads into a presidential election next year, those questioned in the latest poll believe Sarkozy has the most to gain from Strauss-Kahn’s downfall, followed by the far-right National Front candidate, Marine Le Pen, and the current Socialist Party front-runner, François Holland. New York Times News Service