"罗塞夫风格"困扰巴西

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.

尽管得票率较上次大选有所降低，但考虑到巴西过去两年的经济下行，巴西总统迪尔玛•罗塞夫(Dilma Rousseff)能在本次总统大选中赢得连任已经算是取得了意外的政治成功。不过，市场似乎并不买账。

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.

说得客气点，罗塞夫自2012年以来的经济成绩欠佳。尽管都受到了全球经济风暴的冲击，但印度和中国现在的状况可距巴西所处的技术性衰退有着相当的距离。

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.

巴西的通胀率已攀升至罗塞夫政府设定的6.5%的目标上方。在经历过上世纪八九十年代的恶性通胀后，巴西人对这一指标非常敏感。去年，通胀推动公共服务成本、尤其是交通成本不断上升；圣保罗和里约热内卢交通票价的上涨，是引发撼动巴西精英阶层的抗议运动的主要原因。

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.

这些例子凸显了巴西多年来面临的另一个严峻问题：政治阶层的腐化。抗议者直截了当地表明，他们把罗塞夫及其所在的巴西劳工党(Workers' Party)视为腐败统治阶层的重要组成部分。

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，这些例子凸显出人们对于政党的普遍不满。长期以来，巴西的政党一直是政客实现其寻租野心的工具，而非表达民意的平台。一些规模较小的政党则利用自身在国会和州议会的存在捞取好处，紧盯着官僚体系内的闲职不放。

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.

罗塞夫未能实现政治改革：她正卡在她说想修理的那台机器的齿轮当中。她的前任——费尔南多•恩里克•卡多佐(Fernando Henrique Cardoso)和路易斯•伊纳西奥•卢拉•达席尔瓦(Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva)——在正确的地方涂抹了一些润滑油，目的在于确保这台机器能够运转得更平顺一点，甚至旨在让其产生一些新的变化、以使其能够偶尔发挥应有的作用。卡多佐破解了螺旋式的通胀，卢拉•达席尔瓦则启动了让数千万巴西人脱贫的伟大工程。

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.”

罗塞夫未能取得同样的成绩，根本原因在于她的个性。巴西才女记者达妮埃拉•皮涅罗(Daniela Pinheiro)曾在月刊《Piauí》上撰写过一篇关于罗塞夫的极为精彩的个人传记。皮涅罗认为，罗塞夫曾在上世纪六七十年代作为一名革命的左翼人士与军事独裁展开斗争，正是这种人生经历塑造了其政治风格。在斗争中，她曾被当局逮捕并遭受严刑拷打。巴西的一名前部长称，罗塞夫喜欢像一名地下监狱的犯人那样行事。皮涅罗引用这名前部长的话称，罗塞夫的这种倾向解释了下面的一切：“喜欢独处，凡事靠自己，不信任别人，对信息有控制欲，习惯存有大量现金以备‘这种或那种’不测，习惯睡觉时不脱鞋，以便随时逃生。她还是活在上世纪六十年代阴影里的那个女孩。”

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.

她的个性是个麻烦。在巴西政坛，你若想解决问题，就必须平易近人并建立庞大的关系网；你要有个人魅力，要八面玲珑。卡多佐和卢拉•达席尔瓦均具备这种能力。事实上，如若不是卢拉•达席尔瓦最后决定全力帮助罗塞夫竞选，她上月很可能无法成功连任。

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.

对于国家掌控的大型大宗商品企业，比如国有控股石油企业巴西国家石油公司(Petrobras)和矿业综合企业淡水河谷(Vale)，罗塞夫几乎有着列宁主义式的信仰，也因此忽视了更具活力的制造业和服务业。她听任葡萄牙殖民主义官僚传统扼杀创新，这种纵容态度尤甚于她的两位前任。在世界银行(World Bank)公布的全球营商环境排名中，巴西仅排在第120位，着实令人失望。

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，罗塞夫似乎意识到了一些弊端，承诺她的新政府将更具包容性。然而，为了扭转巴西岌岌可危的经济现状、甚至解决巴西国家石油公司渐渐明朗的腐败丑闻，她必须迈出对任何上了年纪的人来说都很难迈出的一步：改变长久以来的习惯。如果她做不到，巴西未来几年的日子可不好过。