经济学人：辜负期望的罗塞夫 [英国媒体]

Brazil

巴西

The great betrayal

巨大的辜负

Dilma Rousseff has let her countrydown. But so has the entire political class

迪尔玛·罗塞夫已经让她的祖国失望。但整个政治集团也一样
  


BRAZIL’SCongress has witnessed some bizarre scenes in its time. In 1963 a senator aimeda gun at his arch-enemy and killed another senator by mistake. In 1998 acrucial government bill failed when a congressman pushed the wrong button onhis electronic voting device. But the spectacle in the lower house on April17th surely counts among the oddest. One by one, 511 deputies filed towards acrowded microphone and, in ten-second bursts broadcast to a rapt nation, votedon the impeachment of the president, Dilma Rousseff. Some were draped inBrazilian flags. One launched a confetti rocket. Many gushed dedications totheir home towns, religions, pet causes—and even Brazil’s insurance brokers.The motion to forward charges against Ms Rousseff to the Senate for trialpassed by 367 votes to 137, with seven abstentions.

巴西的国会已经在它的历程中见证了一些离奇的场景。1963年一个参议员把枪瞄准了他的头号敌人，却误杀了另一个参议员。1998年，一位国会议员按错了电子投票器的按钮导致至关重要的国会法案被否决。但是4月17日发生在下院（众议院）的奇观绝对算得上最离奇的。511名议员逐个面对密密麻麻的麦克风发表10秒的演说，并对弹劾总统迪尔玛罗塞夫的法案进行投票，通过电视广播给了全神贯注的民众们。一些人身披巴西国旗，还有个人放了一只礼宾花（注：手持的那种喷彩纸屑的东西）。许多人滔滔不绝地陈词弹劾的理由，关于他们的家乡、信仰、宠物——甚至是巴西的保险中介。这一提请参议院指控罗塞夫总统并审判的提案最终以367票赞同、137票反对、7票弃权获得通过。

Thevote comes at a desperate time. Brazil is struggling with its worst recessionsince the 1930s. GDP is expected to shrink by 9% from the second quarter of2014, when the recession started, to the end of this year. Inflation and theunemployment rate are both around 10%.

这次表决正处在一段令人绝望的时期。巴西正挣扎在自20世纪30年代以来最为严重的衰退中。预计从衰退开始的2014年二季度到2016年底，巴西GDP将萎缩9%。通胀率和失业率将双双达到10%左右。

Thefailure is not only of Ms Rousseff’s making. The entire political class has letthe country down through a mix of negligence and corruption. Brazil’s leaderswill not win back the respect of its citizens or overcome the economy’sproblems unless there is a thorough clean-up.

这样的败局并非罗塞夫一手造成。整个政治集团已通过一系列的玩忽职守和腐败让国家失望。除非能彻底整肃这样的局面，否则巴西的领导人们将无法赢回民众的尊敬、也无法解决经济问题。

DitchingDilma

抛弃迪尔玛

Sunday’svote was not the end of Ms Rousseff, but her departure cannot now be far off.Brazil ought not to mourn her. Incompetence in her first term in office, from2011 to 2014, has made the country’s economic plight incomparably worse. HerWorkers’ Party (PT) is a prime mover behind a gargantuan bribery scheme centredon Petrobras, the state-controlled oil company, which channelled money fromcontractors to politicians and parties. Although Ms Rousseff has not beenpersonally implicated in the wrongdoing, she tried to shield her predecessor aspresident, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, from prosecution.

周日的表决并不是罗塞夫的终点，但她的离开也只是时间问题了。巴西不应该为她的离开而感到痛心。在她不合格的第一任期——2011-2014年期间，她使国家的困境雪上加霜。她的工人党（PT）是一个以国有石油企业——巴西石油公司为核心的巨大贿赂体系背后的最重要操控者，而这个石油公司专门将资金从承包商手中送到政客和政党手中。尽管罗塞夫本人并没有受到犯罪行为的牵连，她仍试图保护巴西前总统卢拉免予起诉。

Whatis alarming is that those who are working for her removal are in many waysworse. If the Senate votes to put her on trial, probably by mid-May, MsRousseff will have to step aside for up to 180 days. The vice-president, MichelTemer, who comes from a different party, will take over and serve out her termif the Senate removes her from office (see article). Mr Temer may provideshort-term economic relief. Unlike the hapless Ms Rousseff, he knows how to getthings done in Brasília and his Party of the Brazilian Democratic Movement(PMDB) is friendlier to business than the PT.

令人担忧的是，那些为让她免职而不遗余力的人在许多方面更差。如果参议院在可能于五月中旬举行的表决中决定审判她，那么罗塞夫将有至多180天靠边站。如果参议院免除了罗塞夫的职务，那么来自另一个政党的副总统米歇尔·特梅尔就将接替她直到她原来的任期结束。特梅尔先生或许会提供一个短期的经济救济。不同于倒霉的罗塞夫，他知道在巴西利亚如何把事情做好，而且他的巴西民主运动党（PMDB）相比于工人党（PT）来说，对商业更友好。

Butthe PMDB is hopelessly compromised, too. One of its leaders is the speaker ofthe lower house, Eduardo Cunha, who presided over Sunday’s six-hour impeachmentspectacle and has himself been charged by the supreme court with taking bribesthrough the Petrobras scheme. In announcing their “no” votes, some of MsRousseff’s allies denounced Mr Cunha as a “gangster” and a “thief”.

但是民主运动党的名声也无可救药地受损了。其中一个领导人是下院的发言人，名叫爱德华多·库尼亚。他主持了周日那场6小时的弹劾奇景，自己也被最高法院指控涉嫌通过国家石油公司的体系收受贿赂。一些罗塞夫的盟友在宣布反对票时公开指责库尼亚是“黑帮分子”和“小偷”。

Thetaint of corruption is spread across many Brazilian parties. Of the 21 deputiesunder investigation in the Petrobras affair, 16 voted for Ms Rousseff’simpeachment. About 60% of congressmen face accusations of criminal wrongdoing.

腐败的污名传到了很多巴西政党上。21名因巴西石油公司案件被调查的议员有16人赞成对罗塞夫的弹劾。约有60%的国会议员面临不法行为的刑事指控。

Thereare no quick ways of putting this right. The roots of Brazil’s politicaldysfunction go back to the slave-based economy of the 19th century, todictatorship in the 20th and to a flawed electoral system that both makescampaigns ruinously expensive and also shields politicians from account.

处理好这个问题没有捷径可走。巴西政治的功能障碍的根源可以追溯到19世纪基于奴隶制的经济，20世纪的独裁以及一个有缺陷的选举制度，这个选举制度不仅将选举变得奇贵无比，而且让政客的账户变得不透明。

Inthe short run, impeachment will not fix this. The charge that is the basis fortrying Ms Rousseff—that she manipulated accounts last year to make the fiscaldeficit look smaller than it was—is so minor that just a handful of congressmenbothered to mention it in their ten-second tirades. If Ms Rousseff is ousted ona technicality, Mr Temer will struggle to be seen as a legitimate president bythe large minority of Brazilians who still back Ms Rousseff.

在短期内，弹劾解决不了这个问题。对于令人恼火的罗塞夫，指控只是最基本的——比如去年她操纵了账目使财政赤字看起来比实际少了——这样的行为显得如此轻微以至于只有少数议员在十秒的演讲中愿意提及。如果罗塞夫按法律规定被赶下台，那么特梅尔先生将很难被大多数仍然支持罗塞夫的民众看作是合法总统。

Inany other country, such a cocktail of economic decline and political conflictmight be combustible. Yet Brazil has remarkable reserves of tolerance. Dividedas they are over the rights and wrongs of impeachment, Brazilians have kepttheir anger in check. The past three decades suggest that theirs is a countrywhich can endure a crisis without resorting to coups or collapses. And here,perhaps, is a shred of hope.

在任何其他国家，经济衰退和政治斗争的双重作用都可能发酵为冲突。然而巴西拥有非凡的宽容度。尽管巴西人在弹劾提案中分为支持和反对两派，他们仍然能让自己的怒火受到控制。过去的三十年表明，他们可以忍受危机而不会崩溃或诉诸政变。而这，或许是一丝希望。

Thefact that the Petrobras scandal has ensnared some of the country’s mostpowerful politicians and businessmen is a sign that some institutions,especially those that enforce the law, are maturing. One reason politicians arein such trouble is that a new, better-educated and more assertive middle classrefused to put up with their impunity. Some of the statutes now being used toput away miscreants were enacted by Ms Rousseff’s government.

事实上巴西石油公司的丑闻已使这个国家一些最有权势的政治家和商人们深陷其中，这标志着一些机构，尤其是那些执法机构，是成熟的。政治家们陷入这样的麻烦的一个原因，就是新一代受到更好教育且更加自信的中产阶级拒绝忍受他们的逍遥法外。现在，一些用来将不法之徒送进监狱的法规恰恰是罗塞夫政府制定的。

Oneway of capturing this spirit would be for the country to hold fresh elections.A new president might have a mandate to embark on reforms that have eludedgovernments for decades. Voters also deserve a chance to rid themselves of theentire corruption-infested Congress. Only new leaders and new legislators canundertake the fundamental reforms that Brazil needs, in particular an overhaulof the corruption-prone political system and of uncontrolled public spending,which pushes up debt and hobbles growth.

激发这种精神的一种途径就是重新举行大选。新总统可能有一个任务，着手进行那些被逃避了数十年的改革。选民们也应该得到一个机会，让他们能摆脱这个腐败猖獗的国会。只有新的领导人和新的立法者可以承诺巴西所需要的根本性改革，特别是全面检查腐败多发的政治系统和不受控制的公共开支，它们推高债务并阻碍了增长。

Secondbest

第二好的选择

Trueenough, the path to renewal through the ballot box is strewn with obstacles.Given its record, Congress is unlikely to pass the constitutional amendmentrequired to dissolve itself and hold an early general election. The electoraltribunal could order a new presidential ballot, on the ground that Petrobrasbribe money helped finance the re-election of Ms Rousseff and Mr Temer in 2014.But that is far from certain.

诚然，通过投票箱重新大选的路遍布荆棘。根据过往的记录，国会不大可能通过自行解散并提前举行大选的宪法修正案。选举法庭可以提请一个新的总统选举，理由是巴西石油公司贿赂的资金资助了罗塞夫和特梅尔在2014年的连任选举。但这还远不能确定。

Thereis thus a good chance that Brazil will be condemned to muddle on under thecurrent generation of discredited leaders. Its voters should not forget thismoment. Because, in the end, they will have a chance to go to the polls—andthey should use it to vote for something better.

在有这样一个好机会的情况下，巴西如果仍然在当下名誉扫地的领导人统治下得过且过，就将注定被后世谴责。
它的选民不应该忘记这一刻。因为在最后，他们将有机会去投票——他们应该把选票投向更好的地方。

（下面是经济学人网站上有关巴西经济的图表，便于大家对巴西经济形势有一个直观的了解）



↑GDP增长率


  
↑财政赤字、利率与通胀率


  
↑工资与失业率


  
↑债务