IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn, facing sexual assault charges in New York, was the front-runner in the latest opinion polls to win next year’s presidential election in France and replace incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy.

    The 62-year-old Socialist, who served as French finance minister in the late 1990s, left for Washington in late 2007 to head the International Monetary Fund (IMF), just as the global economy was hit by the worst downturn since World War II.

    The polls have consistently shown Strauss-Kahn, who was yet to officially declare his candidacy, trouncing Sarkozy and leading all other potential challengers in the presidential election next April and May.

    That was until the shock news of his arrest in New York over an alleged sexual assault on a hotel maid. Prosecutors charged him May 15 with a criminal sexual act, attempted rape and unlawful imprisonment.

    No stranger to controversy, Strauss-Kahn was investigated by the IMF in 2008 over possible abuse of power involving a brief affair with an economist at the fund. He was cleared of abusing power and apologized publicly for “a serious error of judgment.”

    News of his arrest at New York’s JFK airport could hardly have come at a more critical moment.

    France’s Socialist Party, the main opposition party, holds a “primary” contest to pick a runner for the presidential race and candidates have to register soon. Strauss-Kahn was widely expected to declare his intentions by late June.

    Brought up in a secular and liberal Jewish household in Morocco and Monaco, Strauss-Kahn launched into an academic career before entering politics.

    Like Sarkozy, he has been married three times, the first time to his high-school sweetheart at the age of 18.

    To some Frenchmen of an older generation, Strauss-Kahn’s third and current wife, Anne Sinclair, is arguably the bigger celebrity, despite having long ago swapped her job as the most-watched interviewer on French current affairs TV for the role of loyal spouse, and part-time blogger.

    Sinclair, who married Strauss-Kahn when he was an industry minister in 1991 under the late Socialist President Francois Mitterrand, is granddaughter and heiress of one of France’s biggest art dealers.

    When he had to make a public apology over the affair, Sinclair stuck by his side in a way that prompted comparisons to Hillary Clinton, the U.S. secretary of state and wife of former U.S. President Bill Clinton.

    Far from French shores, Strauss-Kahn, the globe-trotting IMF boss, has carefully nurtured his left-wing credentials.

    When the global economic crisis struck at the end of 2007, Strauss-Kahn likes to let it be known he was the first to say world leaders would have to throw trillions of dollars into the pot to fight off depression.

    That amounted to a small revolution for many at the IMF, hated in many countries like Argentina for ordering stringent austerity programs in return for its rescue loans.

    In France, Strauss-Kahn was the architect of the economic policy that helped sweep the Socialists to power in 1997 and won him the job of finance minister. He is an economist by training and at one stage in the 1970s looked destined for a career as a major academic player in the field.

    As finance minister, helped by an economic boom, he won praise for helping France qualify for the euro currency and launching a massive state-funded program to create 350,000 jobs. He claimed ownership of the shift to a 35-hour working week — but left the fraught implementation to someone else.

    His stint as head of a powerful finance, industry and budget ministry was cut short abruptly when he resigned in late 1999 over a Socialist Party funding scandal. He was later acquitted.

    Years on, luck was on his side. He left French shores in November 2007 with a mandate to cut costs at an IMF whose role was widely seen as fading. Just as he got there, the great global recession gave the rescue-lending agency, and Strauss-Kahn, a new lease of life. (SD-Agencies)

    Jockeying steps up to replace Strauss-Kahn

    WHILE Strauss-Kahn remains confined to a Rikers Island jail cell, the dividing lines are sharpening in a dispute over whether someone from a rich or an emerging economy should lead the IMF after his exit.

    Among possible replacements for Strauss-Kahn are at least four fellow Europeans: French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde; the former head of the German central bank, Axel Weber; the head of Europe’s bailout fund, Klaus Regling; and Peer Steinbrueck, a former German finance minister.

    Candidates from elsewhere include Turkey’s former finance minister, Kemal Dervis; Singapore’s finance chief Tharman Shanmugaratnam; and Indian economist Montek Singh Ahluwalia.

    Other possibilities include Trevor Manuel, South Africa’s former finance minister; Mexico’s central bank governor, Agustin Carstens; former Brazilian central bank president Arminio Fraga; and China’s Zhu Min, a special adviser to Strauss-Kahn.

    Zhu, a former vice governor of China’s central bank, declined to comment on any scenarios.

    (SD-Agencies)

    Ladies’ man or sexual predator?

    AMID charges of sexual abuse and rape, Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s ladies’ man reputation may be working against him.

    Nicknamed “the Great Seducer,” the former International Monetary Fund chief has spoken publicly about his affinity for women and his infidelity.

    The New York charges follow earlier allegations by French journalist Tristane Banon that Strauss-Kahn sexually assaulted her like a “rutting chimpanzee” during an interview nine years ago.

    A graphic description of the alleged attack, recounted by Banon herself on a 2007 television program, was posted on the Internet and widely quoted and commented upon in French blogs and Web sites.

    In the clip Banon, who was 22 at the time of the incident, says she had asked to talk to Strauss-Kahn for a book of interviews with leading French figures about the “biggest mistake you ever made.”

    She told how he had insisted on holding her hand during the interview and then made advances to her.

    “It ended really badly. We ended up fighting. It finished really violently,” the clip shows her saying. “We fought on the floor. It wasn’t a case of a couple of slaps. I kicked him, he unhooked my bra, he tried to open my jeans,” she said.

    Under French law, sexual assault charges must be filed within three years but attempted rape charges can be brought up to 10 years after the alleged attack.

    Banon did not file charges at the time of the alleged assault after her mother Anne Mansouret, a local Socialist Party councilor and Strauss-Kahn friend, persuaded her against bringing proceedings. Banon says she now regrets that decision and is considering filing a legal complaint.

    Mansouret told French television her daughter had become depressed after the incident, which she said had made it impossible for Banon to pursue a career as a journalist.(SD-Agencies)