The World Bank and IMF grappled with internal upheaval Tuesday, rocked by a scandal that threatens the job of bank president Paul Wolfowitz and Venezuela's surprise decision to withdraw from both powerful financial institutions.

The World Bank and the IMF were founded at the end of World War II as a way to help stabilize world finances and fight poverty. Today, however, critics see them as tools of the United States used to impose free-market ideology.

"We are going to withdraw before they go and rob us," Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said Monday, announcing his decision.

"Why? Because (those institutions) are in crisis. I read in the press somewhere that the IMF does not have enough money to meet its payroll."

Relations between the Fund and Chavez have been especially testy since the IMF offered support to a military regime that toppled Chavez in an April 2002 coup. The regime lasted all of 47 hours before Chavez returned to power.

"A few hours after the coup they put out a press release saying that they would support the new government," said Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a Washington-based think-tank.

"It was unprecedented. The IMF doesn't act that fast even for newly-

elected governments," he said.

The IMF stressed Tuesday that there was no such press release at the time. But a Fund spokesman, at a regular briefing, did say then "we stand ready to assist the new administration in whatever manner they find suitable."

Several other Latin American presidents, including Nestor Kirchner of Argentina and Rafael Correa of Ecuador, do not hide their disdain for the institutions.

Correa even kicked out the World Bank representative from Ecuador for allegedly refusing to disburse an already approved 100 million dollar loan in 2005, allegedly to punish the country for oil sector reforms.