Factbox: Candidates next to succeed the IMF post

French finance minister Christine Lagarde, Mexican central bank governor Agustin Carstens and Bank of Israel governor Stanley Fischer have confirmed they are candidates to lead the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The process for countries to name candidates closed on June 10 and a new head of the IMF, the main institution overseeing global financial stability, will be elected on June 30.                                         

South Africa's Trevor Manuel ruled himself out of the race. It is unclear whether Grigory Marchenko, head of the central bank of Kazakhstan, whose name was put forward for the post by the ex-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), formally submitted his name.

The IMF board hopes that the member countries will agree through consensus on a candidate although it could go to a vote. The United States and Europe hold 48 per cent of the votes in the IMF and emerging markets - China, India, Brazil and Russia - have 12 per cent of the votes.

The IMF post has traditionally gone to a European, but with developing countries playing a greater role in the world economy and demanding a bigger say, there is rising pressure to open the process to all IMF member states.

IMF rules state that no one should be appointed to the post of managing director who is 65 or older and that no one should hold the post beyond the age of 70. Without changes to those rules, that would knock out 67-year-old Fischer.

The IMF job came open when dominique Strauss-Kahn resigned after he was arrested and charged for sexual assault and attempted rape of a maid in a Manhattan hotel. He denies the charges.    

Below is a list of candidates to succeed him: 

Christine Lagarde (France)
If elected, Lagarde, 55, would become the first woman to head the institution.                                           

A medal-winning member of France's synchronized swimming team as a teenager and the first female chairman of U.S. law firm Baker Mac Kenzie, Lagarde won respect in the markets during the global financial crisis and helped promote France's negotiating clout in key forums like the Group of 20.

A fluent English speaker, Lagarde was voted best finance minister in Europe by the Financial Times in 2009.

Counting against her is her nationality. A Frenchman has run the IMF for 26 out of the last 33 years and the Strauss-Kahn embarrassment may make it difficult for Paris to argue that its run should continue. French president Nicolas Sarkozy may be reluctant to see the popular Lagarde leave in the midst of France's presidency of the G20 and a year before the country's legislative and presidential elections.

Lagarde also faces a possible inquiry into her role in awarding financial compensation to flamboyant French businessman, Bernard Tapie.  

Agustin Carstens (Mexico)
Carstens, 52, has served most of his professional career as an economic policymaker in his home country, becoming governor of the Bank of Mexico in January last year after serving as the bank's chief economist.

His debut raised questions about the central bank's independence after Carstens pledged to work closely with the government and invited the finance minister to sit for monetary policy discussions.

He had a successful stint as deputy managing director at the IMF from 2003 to 2006, before returning to Mexico to coordinate the economic policy program of President Felipe Calderon, later becoming secretary of finance.

Carstens obtained a PhD in economics in 1985 from the University of Chicago, a haven for proponents of deregulation and laissez-faire economics.

Working against Carstens is the fact that he comes from the Americas. Robert Zoellick of the United States runs the World Bank and other countries may not be keen to see officials from the same part of the world running the two global institutions.   

He also lacks the backing of Brazil, Latin America's leading economy, which said, on May 23, that it needed more time to make a choice.   

Stanley Fischer (Israel-US citizenship
Born in Zambia in 1943, the IMF would have to change its age rules to appoint the 67-year-old renowned economist and former IMF number two. 

He was chief economist at the World Bank from January 1988 to August 1990. A professor of economics at MIT from 1977-1999 and is popular in the United States and was Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke's thesis adviser.                                           

He was the first deputy managing director of the IMF from 1994-2001. During that time, he was instrumental in bailouts of Mexico, South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia and Russia during their crisis in the mid to late 1990s.

He was vice chairman of Citigroup from 2002 to 2005, where he was president of Citigroup International in 2002-2004. He was appointed Bank of Israel governor in May 2005 and was given a second term in May 2010.

He is widely credited with bringing Israel to the forefront of the global economy and helping it to weather the global financial crisis with minimal damage.