IMF’s Lagarde seeks second term in office

PARIS: International Monetary Fund managing director Christine Lagarde launched her campaign for a second term on Friday with ringing endorsements from a host of major economies - and a court case against her looming in her native France.The former French finance minister who trained as a lawyer has no obvious challengers and has long been open to serving another five-year term. The prime ministers of Britain and France backed her publicly.

"I am candidate to a new mandate. I was honored to receive from the start of the process the backing of France, Britain, Germany, China, Korea," the 60 year-old told France 2 television in an interview from Davos. 

The German Finance Ministry weighed in with its own endorsement on Friday. "Germany welcomes the renewed candidacy of Christine Lagarde for a further term as managing director of the IMF. Ms Lagarde was a prudent and successful crisis manager in the difficult times after the financial crisis," the finance ministry said in a statement. 

The first woman to head the fund on her appointment in 2011, Lagarde has been dogged off-and-on since then for her role in a long-running business scandal while she was France's finance minister.

Last month, a French judge ordered her to face trial for negligence in a special ministerial court over the 2008 payout of some $430 million to businessman Bernard Tapie.