Russia nominated former Czech central banker Josef Tosovsky as head of the IMF.
Current IMF Managing Director Rodrigo de Rato, who has led the fund since May 2004, suddenly announced his resignation in July and is expected to step down in October.
Tosovsky was governor of the Czech National Bank in 1989-2000 and headed the government in 1997-1998 under then-President Vaclav Havel. He currently chairs the Financial Stability Institute in Basel, Switzerland.
The European Union put forward former French Finance Minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn as a candidate for the top position in the global financial institution, traditionally occupied by West European financiers.
By convention, the heads of the two "Bretton Woods" institutions - the World Bank and the IMF - are selected by the U.S. and Europe, respectively.
After meeting with Strauss-Kahn in Moscow earlier this month, Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, a member of the IMF Board of Governors, said the procedure to elect the IMF head did not seem sufficiently transparent or competitive to Russia.
Experts said Russia's nomination has created competition for the post.
"We have held wide consultations with our foreign colleagues and made sure that most of them favor electing a managing director of the fund on a competitive basis, judged by their professional skills. This predetermined our decision to put forward an alternative candidate," the Russian ministry's statement said.
Kudrin also said that a legitimate choice on a competitive basis would secure a better image for the organization. "Considering IMF failures in a number of crisis-hit countries, the fund's image needs to be improved. Otherwise, I am sure that many countries will start solving their problems by distancing themselves from the IMF platform," he added.
However, the Russian initiative was met coldly in Prague. Czech media quoted Finance Minister Miroslav Kalousek as saying that Tosovsky was not the Czech Republic's candidate, and that the Czech government "will respect the conclusions of the council of economic and finance ministers of the EU," which forwarded Strauss-Kahn.
