Pakistan
巴基斯坦
Man of the hour
当红政客
Aug 28th 2008 | LAHORE
From The Economist print edition
From demented jailbird to president-in-waiting: Asif Zardari’s metamorphosis
从精神错乱的阶下囚到准总统：扎尔达里的巨变
THE widower of Benazir Bhutto and inheritor of her Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Asif Zardari, is on a roll. He is expected to win the indirect presidential election due on September 6th, having been named as the PPP’s candidate this week. For a man accused of massive corruption in his murdered wife’s two governments, on account of which he has spent eight years in prison, where his lawyers said he became depressed and demented, this is quite a turnaround.
做为贝布托的鳏夫及其人民党继任领导人，扎尔达里风头正劲。本周，他被提名为人民党总统候选人，可能会赢得9月6日的巴总统大选。扎尔达里曾被指控在贝布托政府任职期间犯有腐败罪，并因此度过了8年牢狱生活。他的律师说，坐牢期间他变得意志消沉并患上了精神疾病。对于这样一个人来说，目前的境况真是一个巨大的转变。
The presidency became vacant on August 19th, when Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s ruler for almost a decade, resigned to escape impeachment by the PPP-led government. Mr Zardari had agreed to oust Mr Musharraf, a former military dictator and two-time coupster, largely to placate a quarrelsome coalition partner, Nawaz Sharif, the leader of the Pakistan Muslim League (N), or PML (N). But Mr Sharif, who was toppled and imprisoned by Mr Musharraf in 1999, was not satisfied by this: on August 25th he withdrew his party from the government.
为了逃避人民党领导的执政联盟的弹劾，8月19日，在位近10年的穆沙拉夫宣布辞职。自此，巴总统职位出现空缺。扎尔达里之所以同意将穆沙拉夫这个发动过两次政变的前军事独裁者逐出政坛，很大程度上是为了抚慰谢里夫（穆斯林联盟谢里夫派领导人）这个喜欢争吵的执政伙伴。但1999年被穆沙拉夫赶下台并被囚禁的谢里夫并不满意：8月25日，他宣布他的政党退出执政联盟。
This has reduced the ruling coalition, which includes two small regional parties and a smaller Islamist one, to a slender parliamentary majority. But if, as currently looks likely, Mr Zardari is voted president by the electoral college of the four provincial assemblies and two houses of parliament, it will be bolstered.
执政联盟包括两个小型地方政党和一个更小的伊斯兰政党，但穆盟谢里夫派的退出使得执政联盟仅在国会占微弱优势。不过现在看来，扎尔达里很可能被议会两院和选举团体（由四个省级议会组成）选为总统，这样一样，执政联盟的力量将得到加强。
Mr Zardari would then inherit the swollen powers Mr Musharraf grabbed for the office, allowing him to appoint provincial governors and service chiefs and to dissolve parliament on a whim. He might also inherit Mr Musharraf’s political backers, the Pakistan Muslim League (Q) party. An opportunistic lot, cannibalised by the then-General Musharraf from Mr Sharif’s party, they came a distant third in a general election in February, but would give the government a solid majority.
穆沙拉夫当政期间，总统权力得到加强，扎尔达里将继承这一切，他可以任命省长和军队参谋长，可以随意解散国会。他还可能得到穆沙拉夫的穆盟领袖派的支持。穆盟领袖派是当年的穆沙拉夫将军从谢里夫的政党里分化出来的投机产物，它在今年二月的选举中成为了第三大党，虽然与前两名相差甚远，但它的支持足以令政府的优势地位稳固。
A famous playboy, Mr Zardari was known in the days of Miss Bhutto’s governments as “Mr 10%”. He was imprisoned, but not convicted, by both Mr Sharif and Mr Musharraf, on charges including murder and corruption. He has been investigated for money-laundering and other crimes in Spain and Switzerland. A British newspaper, the Financial Times, reported this week that Mr Zardari’s lawyers submitted medical records to a British court last year, claiming he was suffering from dementia and severe depression, and so was unable to appear there on corruption charges. That was one of several cases against Mr Zardari that ran into the sands last year when Pakistan’s government withdrew support. At the time, Mr Musharraf was negotiating with Miss Bhutto about a possible alliance. She and Mr Zardari also received an amnesty from corruption charges in Pakistan.
扎尔达里是一个有名的敛财高手，在贝布托当政时期，他以”10%”先生而闻名。谢里夫和穆沙拉夫都曾以谋杀和腐败的指控将他送进监狱，但都没有定罪。他在西班牙和瑞士因洗钱和其它罪行而接受调查。英国《金融时报》本周报道说，扎尔达里的律师去年向英国法院提交了医疗纪录，称他患有痴呆和严重的抑郁症，无法出庭接受腐败指控。这不过是去年众多遭到阻挠的针对扎尔达里的案件之一，因为巴基斯坦政府不支持。当时，穆沙拉夫正与贝布托就组建联盟而谈判，扎尔达里和贝布托都受到了赦免，免于在巴基斯坦受到腐败指控。
Whatever Mr Zardari’s past reputation, optimists hope that the gathering of power in his hands as president might, just possibly, bring a little more political stability to Pakistan. At the least, it would make the PPP accountable for its handling of the country’s twin crises: a plunging economy and spiralling Taliban insurgency, which on August 21st saw a suicide attack outside a munitions factory in the town of Wah that killed 67 people. Hitherto, the government has seemed too absorbed in bickering between the PPP and PML (N) to give much thought to these problems. Indeed, it has had no permanent finance minister since May, when Mr Sharif withdrew his nine ministers from the government.
不管扎尔达里过去的名声如何，乐观派希望，他的当选或许能为巴基斯坦带来一点政治稳定。至少它能让人民党为自己着手处理的两大危机负责：陷入低谷的经济和塔利班的频繁暴动，后者于8月21日在瓦赫镇兵工厂门口发动自杀式袭击，造成67人死亡。迄今为止，由于人民党和穆盟谢里夫派争吵不休，联合政府深陷其中，无瑕顾及这些问题。事实上，自5月份谢里夫从执政联盟撤回他的9名部长之后，执政联盟一直没有固定的财政部长。
His complaint was Mr Zardari’s failure to honour a promise to restore some 60 judges. They were sacked by Mr Musharraf last November, to prevent challenges to his re-election. Mr Sharif needs some grateful judges, to overturn a ban on his own eligibility for election, and made this one of his two main political demands. But Mr Zardari, who fears that one or two of these aggrieved judges, including their leader, Iftikhar Chaudhry, might review his legal amnesty, was reluctant. In private negotiations with Mr Sharif, he therefore offered to restore all the judges except these possible spoilers. But Mr Sharif, who showed little regard for the rule of law during his own two riotous spells in power, refused to compromise.
谢里夫对扎尔达里未能恢复60名法官的职务感到不满。这些法官去年11月被穆沙拉夫解职，以免自己连任受阻。谢里夫需要法官来推翻一个禁止自己参加选举的禁令，他把这个做为自己的两个主要要求之一。但扎尔达里不愿恢复这些法官的职务，因为他担心这些法官中的激进分子，比如首席大法官乔杜里，撤销自己的指控赦免。因此，在同谢里夫的私下谈判里，扎尔达里同意恢复这些法官的职务，但不包括那些可能会对自己产生威胁的人。但在自己的两个混乱任期内都从未向法律表示任何敬意的谢里夫却拒绝妥协。
In a televised address, Mr Zardari implored Mr Sharif to return to the government. But this is unlikely for now. In a society addicted to the notion of “honour”, Mr Sharif’s trenchant stance has made him popular. In opposition he may become even more loved: not least because he will now be free to castigate the army’s counter-insurgency efforts in the north-west, which are as unpopular as they have so far been hapless. Moreover, with such grievous problems to address, and an untested leader in Mr Zardari, the PPP-led government may well fail; this would be a further boost for Mr Sharif.
扎尔达里在电视讲话里恳求谢里夫重返执政联盟，但目前看来这不太可能。在一个醉心于”名誉”的社会里，谢里夫的清晰立场为自己赢得了支持。站在反对派的位置，他可能更受爱戴：不仅因为他可以自由的痛斥军队在西北地区的平暴行动（剿灭塔利班的平暴行动一直不顺利，民怨沸腾）；更主要的，总统扎尔达里从未经受严峻考验，此外他们还需要应对众多棘手难题，人民党政府很可能因此不堪重负。这将进一步增加谢里夫的威望。
But Mr Zardari will also have ways to clip his rival’s ambitions. For a start, the PPP might consider leaving the coalition government that Mr Sharif’s party leads in Punjab, Pakistan’s richest province, leaving it in a minority there. In the 1990s, when Mr Sharif and Miss Bhutto alternated in power, such manoeuvring, viciously pursued, made Pakistan almost as unstable as it is now. Ultimately, this led to the army’s takeover, as, in Pakistan’s history, political instability always does.
但是扎尔达里也有办法击碎对手的野心。首先，人民党会考虑退出旁遮普省的执政联盟，使之成为少数派。该省是巴基斯坦最富裕的省份，由谢里派的政党执政。在 1990年代谢里夫和贝布托轮流执政时，这种手段被恶意使用，造成当时的巴基斯坦局面如现在般混乱。这最终导致了军队介入，接管了国家政权，政局不稳常常会有这种结果，这已经为巴基斯坦的历史所揭示。
译者：dgrkl http://www.ecocn.org/forum/viewthread.php?tid=13670&page=1&extra=page%3D1#pid85224