The Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank (CDB) is ex­pect­ed to an­nounce to­day that the Bar­ba­di­an can­di­date, Daniel Best, will be the new pres­i­dent of the Bridgetown, Bar­ba­dos-based re­gion­al de­vel­op­ment bank.

Best edged out the T&T can­di­date, Gre­go­ry Hill, fol­low­ing dis­cus­sions that, sources said, took place be­tween T&T Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Bar­ba­dos Prime Min­is­ter, Mia Mot­t­ley. The two prime min­is­ters were among re­gion­al lead­ers who were in Bridgetown last Sat­ur­day for a meet­ing with a bi­part­san US Con­gres­sion­al del­e­ga­tion. Row­ley sup­port­ed the T&T can­di­date, while Mot­t­ley sup­port­ed her coun­try­man.

The dis­cus­sions be­tween Prime Min­is­ters Row­ley and Mot­t­ley on the is­sue of the se­lec­tion of the CDB pres­i­dent were sug­gest­ed by the board of gov­er­nors of the CDB, as a means of break­ing the dead­lock be­tween the two can­di­dates fol­low­ing the No­vem­ber 21 polling for the pres­i­den­cy.

That dead­lock meant nei­ther can­di­date could be elect­ed with­out a tie-break­ing mech­a­nism be­cause the CDB's rules pro­vide that the board of gov­er­nors elects the in­sti­tu­tion's pres­i­dent and that the pres­i­dent "shall be elect­ed by a vote of not less than 66 per cent of the to­tal num­ber of the gov­er­nors rep­re­sent­ing not less than 75 per cent of the to­tal vot­ing pow­er of the mem­bers."

The CDB's two largest share­hold­ers are Trinidad and To­ba­go with 17.31 per cent and Ja­maica with 17.31 per cent. Cana­da and the Unit­ed Kin­dom hold 9.31 per cent each, while Italy and Ger­many are 5.58 per cent share­hold­ers.

Hill cur­rent­ly serves as the CDB's vice pres­i­dent, fi­nance and cor­po­rate ser­vices, while Best is the se­nior in­fra­struc­ture and de­vel­op­ment ad­vi­sor to Prime Min­ster of Bar­ba­dos, Mia Mot­t­ley. That fol­lowed over a decade of em­ploy­ment at the CDB, dur­ing which he rose to be di­rec­tor of projects.

A third can­di­date, Ba­hami­an Therese Turn­er Jones, who is the CDB's act­ing vice pres­i­dent of op­er­a­tions, was with­drawn from the elec­tion in No­vem­ber.

The elec­tion for a new pres­i­dent of the CDB, fol­lowed the de­ci­sion by the in­sti­tu­tion in Jan­u­ary to send its for­mer pres­i­dent, Hy­gi­nus 'Gene' Ly­on, on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave.

Leon, who was the sixth pres­i­dent of the CDB, re­signed in April.

The found­ing pres­i­dent of the CDB was St Lu­cian Arthur Lewis, who was fol­lowed by William De­mas from T&T, Neville Nicholls from Bar­ba­dos, Comp­ton Bourne from Guyana and War­ren Smith from Ja­maica.

Last month af­ter it was clear that the vot­ing was dead­locked, the CDB said the process of elect­ing a new pres­i­dent was on­go­ing and that an ad­di­tion­al round of vot­ing was ex­pect­ed to start to­day and end on Fri­day.

T&T's de­ci­sion to with­draw Hill means to­day's sched­uled vot­ing will not take place.

Ef­forts to get a com­ment from the T&T Prime Min­is­ter were not im­me­di­ate­ly suc­cess­ful last night