French finance minister Christine Lagarde is emerging as the front-runner to replace former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn.
Mr Strauss-Kahn was released from New York's Rikers Island jail yesterday and has been indicted for allegedly trying to rape a hotel housekeeper last Saturday.
Ms Lagarde is in pole position to take over his job after many of Europe's capitals rallied behind her.
She has been praised for her role in tackling the European debt crisis and for her experience, with France this year chairing the Group of 20, in handing the often conflicting economic demands of advanced and developing economies.
The IMF has been run by a European ever since it was created at the end of World War Two.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel all but endorsed Ms Lagarde, telling a news conference she rated her highly.
Chairman of the US law firm Baker & McKenzie in Chicago before joining the French government in 2005, she is a fluent English speaker.
She would be the first woman to head the IMF.
Diplomats said some European Union countries questioned whether Ms Lagarde could be anointed before a special court decides next month whether she should be investigated in a French legal case.
Singapore's finance minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam, who heads the IMF's key policy-steering panel, said the world body faced pressing challenges and must quickly pick a new head.
"It is also imperative that the process be open, transparent and merit-based, so as to ensure the selection of a highly capable candidate...." he said in a statement.
Developing countries, whose importance in the world economy has grown in recent years, kept up pressure on Europe and the United States to avoid a backroom deal over the appointment of the new IMF head.
They want more say in how global finance is run. Asian, Middle Eastern and African diplomats at the IMF headquarters in Washington said emerging nations were seeking a consensus candidate.
The challenge for emerging economies to break Europe's grip on the job got tougher when the most widely tipped potential candidate from among their ranks ruled himself out.
Former Turkish economy minister Kemal Dervis, seen as a front-runner among potential non-European contenders, has ruled himself out.
The IMF board yesterday agreed on a process for finding its new chief which, it said, would include a short-list of candidates, take place in "an open, merit-based and transparent manner" and would be completed by June 30th.
Reuters