THERE is no point trying to argue that the US’s nomination of Paul Wolfowitz to head the World Bank is anything but hugely provocative.

The US maintains that he is the right person at the right time — and he may well be. The bank is at a difficult point in its history. Its own dilemmas about how it should develop rival those of the countries it is supposed to be advising.

In James Wolfensohn’s ten years at the helm, his mixture of charm and disorganisation compounded its problems more than it solved them.

If Wolfowitz proves to be a good choice, then it will be his experience of the success of Asian development and the optimism of his “nation-building” neoconservative convictions which will make him so.

But first, he needs to win the support of the bank’s board. News of his nomination on Wednesday, which elicited outright horror from charities and development economists, also brought coolness from continental Europe and some developing countries who will make the decision.

Europeans also remember 2000, when the US blocked the appointment of the German Caio Koch-Weser as head of the International Monetary Fund. The US, in this case, ignored the tradition that Europe appoints the IMF head and the US the World Bank one. Eventually, another German, Horst Köhler, got the job..

Is it payback time for Europe? Or can the US simply impose such a controversial figure on the bank? More or less, it can. But there is a sliver of room for an upset, because the way that votes are shared out.

The appointment will be now be debated by the 24 executive directors, who make the bank’s day-to-day decisions on behalf of the 184 countries which are members of the bank.

Even though many directors represent more than eight countries, and some almost two dozen, this structure has been thought necessary to make the bank’s management workable. But it can make the outcome of voting unpredictable.

The directors have traditionally managed to reach a consensus on the choice of a president. But their debates pay more than a nod to the different voting weights of the main players. The higher a country’s contribution to the bank, the higher its share of the votes.

The US has more than 16 per cent of the voting rights in the bank (strictly, in the International Bank of Reconstruction and Development, the IBRD), by far the largest of the World Bank’s five arms). Japan, which has said it will back the US choice, has nearly 8 per cent, and China, also in support, has nearly 3 per cent.

Britain, which produced perhaps the warmest European response to Wolfowitz’s name, has 4.3 per cent. So the total of those in support is running at a minimum of 31 per cent.

And against? Well, France and Germany, with nearly 9 per cent between them, have been cool, although they have not said they will oppose it.

But after that, it becomes harder to predict how votes might fall. There are five more executive directors from other European countries: Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy and Switzerland.

But they each represent up to a dozen other countries, including Israel and Turkey, sympathetic to US policy on many fronts, Central and Eastern Europe, Kazakhstan, and Latin America. In the debate, they are bound to be influenced by those they represent, as well as by their own governments. Probably, the question of the next president will not come to a vote. It will be thrashed out in the coming days, as the shock of bank members subsides.

They might take that chance, at the same time, to take stock of the Wolfensohn years. A figure of world-class charisma, he still left the bank without a clear sense of direction.

What should it conclude from its decades of disappointment in Africa? That aid was futile in the absence of good government — or that it had simply backed the wrong people? That it should shun huge projects such as dams, for fear of opposition by environmentalists, and turn instead to micro-projects, such as schools? Or that the huge projects are worthwhile, despite the rows?

Wolfensohn gave no clear answer, and in failing to do so, allowed costs to rise. A successor with clearer convictions might get the answer wrong. But he might restore a sense of direction — and do it more cheaply, if with less charm.

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