"羅塞夫風格"困擾巴西

Given the decline in Brazil’s fortunes in the past two years, President Dilma Rousseff has pulled off a striking political coup by persuading voters to re-elect her, albeit with a reduced majority. The markets, however, do not appear convinced.

儘管得票率較上次大選有所降低，但考慮到巴西過去兩年的經濟下行，巴西總統迪爾瑪•羅塞夫(Dilma Rousseff)能在本次總統大選中贏得連任已經算是取得了意外的政治成功。不過，市場似乎並不買賬。

Her economic record since 2012 has been weak, to put it diplomatically. Although battered by global economic winds, India and China are nowhere close to the technical recession Brazil is now experiencing.

說得客氣點，羅塞夫自2012年以來的經濟成績欠佳。儘管都受到了全球經濟風暴的衝擊，但印度和中國現在的狀況可距巴西所處的技術性衰退有着相當的距離。

Inflation has crept above the 6.5 per cent target set by Ms Rousseff’s government. Having experience hyperinflation in the 1980s and 1990s, Brazilians are highly sensitive to this indicator. Last year inflation was behind the rising cost of public services, above all transport; the increase in fares in São Paulo and Rio were a leading cause of the protests that shook the Brazilian elite.

巴西的通脹率已攀升至羅塞夫政府設定的6.5%的目標上方。在經歷過上世紀八九十年代的惡性通脹後，巴西人對這一指標非常敏感。去年，通脹推動公共服務成本、尤其是交通成本不斷上升；聖保羅和里約熱內盧交通票價的上漲，是引發撼動巴西精英階層的抗議運動的主要原因。

Those demonstrations highlighted another serious issue Brazil has faced for many years: the sclerosis of political institutions. The protesters made crystal clear that they regarded Ms Rousseff and her Workers’ party as very much part of the corrupt establishment.

這些例子凸顯了巴西多年來面臨的另一個嚴峻問題：政治階層的腐化。抗議者直截了當地表明，他們把羅塞夫及其所在的巴西勞工黨(Workers' Party)視爲腐敗統治階層的重要組成部分。

Above all, they highlighted widespread unhappiness with political parties. These have long been vehicles for the rent-seeking ambition of members rather than an expression of popular convictions. Then there is the roster of smaller parties that leverage their presence in state and provincial assemblies with an eye on bureaucratic sinecures.

最重要的是，這些例子凸顯出人們對於政黨的普遍不滿。長期以來，巴西的政黨一直是政客實現其尋租野心的工具，而非表達民意的平臺。一些規模較小的政黨則利用自身在國會和州議會的存在撈取好處，緊盯着官僚體系內的閒職不放。

Ms Rousseff has failed to deliver political reform: she is caught up in the gears of the very machine she says she wants to fix. Her predecessors, Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, applied grease in the right places to ensure the machine ran a little smoother, and even to innovate so that it could occasionally do its job. Mr Cardoso broke the inflation spiral and Mr Lula da Silva began the heroic job of lifting tens of millions out of poverty.

羅塞夫未能實現政治改革：她正卡在她說想修理的那臺機器的齒輪當中。她的前任——費爾南多•恩裏克•卡多佐(Fernando Henrique Cardoso)和路易斯•伊納西奧•盧拉•達席爾瓦(Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva)——在正確的地方塗抹了一些潤滑油，目的在於確保這臺機器能夠運轉得更平順一點，甚至旨在讓其產生一些新的變化、以使其能夠偶爾發揮應有的作用。卡多佐破解了螺旋式的通脹，盧拉•達席爾瓦則啓動了讓數千萬巴西人脫貧的偉大工程。

The president’s inability to do the same is rooted in her personality. Daniela Pinheiro, a gifted Brazilian journalist, has written a fascinating profile in monthly magazine Piauí. Ms Pinheiro argues her political style was formed by her life as a revolutionary leftist fighting the military dictatorship in the 1960s and 1970s. For this she was arrested and tortured. Ms Pinheiro quotes a former minister who says her tendency to act as a member of an underground cell ex­plains everything: “A preference for solitude, self-sufficiency, distrust, the control of information, the habit of keeping large sums of money in cash in case of ‘some sort of emergency or other’, or the habit of sleeping with her shoes on ‘in case she needs to make a quick exit’. She is still that girl from the 1960s.”

羅塞夫未能取得同樣的成績，根本原因在於她的個性。巴西才女記者達妮埃拉•皮涅羅(Daniela Pinheiro)曾在月刊《Piauí》上撰寫過一篇關於羅塞夫的極爲精彩的個人傳記。皮涅羅認爲，羅塞夫曾在上世紀六七十年代作爲一名革命的左翼人士與軍事獨裁展開鬥爭，正是這種人生經歷塑造了其政治風格。在鬥爭中，她曾被當局逮捕並遭受嚴刑拷打。巴西的一名前部長稱，羅塞夫喜歡像一名地下監獄的犯人那樣行事。皮涅羅引用這名前部長的話稱，羅塞夫的這種傾向解釋了下面的一切：“喜歡獨處，凡事靠自己，不信任別人，對信息有控制慾，習慣存有大量現金以備‘這種或那種’不測，習慣睡覺時不脫鞋，以便隨時逃生。她還是活在上世紀六十年代陰影裏的那個女孩。”

Her personality is a problem. To get things done in Brazilian politics you have to be chummy and form endless networks; you need charisma, you have to be all things to all people. Mr Cardoso and Mr Lula da Silva boast that ability. Indeed, it is highly unlikely Ms Rousseff could have won last month’s election had the latter not decided at last to put his full weight behind her campaign.

她的個性是個麻煩。在巴西政壇，你若想解決問題，就必須平易近人並建立龐大的關係網；你要有個人魅力，要八面玲瓏。卡多佐和盧拉•達席爾瓦均具備這種能力。事實上，如若不是盧拉•達席爾瓦最後決定全力幫助羅塞夫競選，她上月很可能無法成功連任。

Ms Rousseff’s almost Leninist faith in large state-influenced commodity enterprises, such as state-controlled oil company Petrobras or mining conglomerate Vale, has led to the neglect of more dynamic sectors of the manufacturing and service economies. She has let Portuguese colonialism’s bureaucratic traditions stifle innovation more than either of her predecessors. In the World Bank’s rankings for ease of doing business, Brazil stands at a lamentable 120.

對於國家掌控的大型大宗商品企業，比如國有控股石油企業巴西國家石油公司(Petrobras)和礦業綜合企業淡水河谷(Vale)，羅塞夫幾乎有着列寧主義式的信仰，也因此忽視了更具活力的製造業和服務業。她聽任葡萄牙殖民主義官僚傳統扼殺創新，這種縱容態度尤甚於她的兩位前任。在世界銀行(World Bank)公佈的全球營商環境排名中，巴西僅排在第120位，着實令人失望。

Last week, Ms Rousseff seemed to recognise some shortcomings by promising her new government would be more inclusive. But to reverse the country’s parlous economic state, not to mention the corruption scandal unravelling at Petrobras, she must do one of the hardest things for any older person: change the habits of a lifetime. If not, Brazil faces a rough few years.

近日，羅塞夫似乎意識到了一些弊端，承諾她的新政府將更具包容性。然而，爲了扭轉巴西岌岌可危的經濟現狀、甚至解決巴西國家石油公司漸漸明朗的腐敗醜聞，她必須邁出對任何上了年紀的人來說都很難邁出的一步：改變長久以來的習慣。如果她做不到，巴西未來幾年的日子可不好過。