⁍ Mauricio Claver-Carone is the first U.S. citizen elected to lead Latin America’s main development bank.

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⁍ In his first interview since Saturday’s election, Claver-Carone said his 67% victory gave him a strong mandate to lead the Inter-American Development Bank.

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⁍ Claver-Carone will take office on Oct. 1 and has pledged to serve only one five-year term.

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– The newly elected president of the Inter-American Development Bank says he wants to boost Latin America’s funding base and build more unity in the region. In an interview with Reuters, Mauricio Claver-Carone, a Trump loyalist and Cuba hard-liner, said his 67% victory gave him a strong mandate to lead the bank. He stressed the need for unity and increased transparency at a time when Latin America and the Caribbean are reeling from the coronavirus pandemic, and downplayed prospects for his removal if Democrat Joe Biden should win the Nov. 3 presidential election. Sixteen countries abstained from the vote, including European countries that have voting shares in the bank. Claver-Carone will take office on Oct. 1 and has pledged to serve only one five-year term. In the run-up to the election, the IDB vote took on the appearance of a geopolitical battle between the Trump administration, which is keen to gain leverage in resource-rich Latin America and counter the rise of China, and some regional powers who wanted to retain control of the lender’s top job. The bank has been led by Latin Americans since its inception in 1959, while the World Bank has historically been led by a US citizen. Claver-Carone said he had already spoken with officials in Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, and Mexico, which sought to delay the vote until after the US election, and assured them he would work with them to make the bank more “financially relevant.”