India today led a number of emerging economies in objecting to a landmark overhaul of the way the International Monetary Fund (IMF) is run.
Indonesia and Malaysia also voiced strong reservations, setting up a battle for the next two years over a second phase of reforms meant to make the governance of the Washington-based lender more representative of its 184 members.
Speaking a day after the first stage of reforms won 90.6 per cent support but was opposed by 23 countries, Indian Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said fundamental changes in voting power were long overdue.
"What is at stake here is the credibility and legitimacy of the IMF," he told the annual meeting of the fund and its sister agency, the World Bank.
"Now that the vote has been done, let me say that the 23 countries - many of them large, emerging and well-performing economies - that voted against the resolution may have lost the vote but have not lost the argument," Mr Chidambaram said.
Argentina, Brazil, Egypt and Iran also voted against the plan, arguing it did not go far enough, fast enough, to reflect a shift in global economic power away from the rich countries that founded the fund in 1945.
The Group of Seven industrial nations alone - the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada - wield 45 percent of the fund's quotas, or membership subscriptions, which largely determine voting power.
By contrast, China, the fourth-largest economy, has a stake of just 3.72 per cent. Before yesterday's vote it was 2.98 per cent. South Korea, Turkey and Mexico also gained bigger voting shares.
The second stage of reforms, due to be completed by 2008, is supposed to devise a new formula for distributing voting powers.
German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck said European Union members that are under-represented, including Germany, should also be given more power.
Big developing nations also stood up to the rich countries that dominate the IMF and World Bank on how to tackle corruption, an issue important to bank president, Paul Wolfowitz, and the US Congress.
"If you want us to be open about corruption, the World Bank needs to be more open with us about your own corruption investigations," said Indonesia's finance minister, Sri Mulyani Indrawati.
If the World Bank unearths evidence of corruption in its projects, it should share the information, she said.
Mr Wolfowitz has put the fight against graft at the heart of the bank's work, but developing countries are concerned that his zeal could slow the flow of lending and punish the poor.