European officials closed ranks to defend their hold on the International Monetary Fund’s top job as pressure mounted on the agency’s jailed leader, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, to step down, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday.

United States Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said the IMF needed to name an interim leader because Strauss-Kahn was “obviously not in a position” to run the fund.

Austrian Finance Minister Maria Fekter told reporters in Brussels on Tuesday that Strauss-Kahn “risks damaging the IMF.”

Senator Mark Kirk, a Republican from Illinois, sought his resignation.

At stake is leadership of an institution that approved a record $91.7 billion in emergency loans last year and provided a third of bailout packages in Europe. Strauss-Kahn’s arrest may give emerging markets, the drivers of global growth, momentum to their push to end a postwar deal under which a European heads the fund and the US picks the World Bank president.

“There is no lack of talent — whether in Europe or the emerging markets — to replace Strauss-Kahn,” said Joseph Tan, the Singapore-based chief economist for Asia at Credit Suisse Group AG’s private-banking division. “There has been a gradual shift of economic power and representation to emerging markets but institutions like the IMF and the World Bank are still centred heavily in the West.”

The charges that Strauss-Kahn, 62, sexually assaulted a maid in a midtown Manhattan hotel over the weekend started the rounds of speculation on a possible successor. His lawyer denied the claims and said the IMF chief would plead not guilty.

“It’s important that the board of the IMF formally put in place for an interim period somebody to act as managing director,” Geithner, who previously worked at the fund, told an audience in New York on Tuesday.

He said “you want the IMF to have the capacity to be helpful” on global financial issues, particularly in Europe.

European officials defended their 65-year lock on the top job at the Washington-based lender.

Finance ministers from Sweden to Spain said there’s a need for a European as Strauss-Kahn’s potential successor while the region contends with a sovereign-debt crisis.

South African and South Korean officials have called for an emerging markets candidate for the job, while Brazil indicated it won’t push for the switch. China’s government asked for a “fair and transparent process.