Ukraine’s government
乌克兰政府
A political soap-opera, continued
政治肥皂剧继续
May 29th 2008 | KIEV
From The Economist print edition
2008年5月29日/基辅
《经济学人》印刷版
The politicians fight among themselves, and liberalising reforms cease
政治家内斗不断，自由化进程停滞
AP美联社
WELCOME to the latest episode of Ukraine’s political soap-opera, starring Yulia Tymoshenko as prime minister and Viktor Yushchenko as president. Here is the plot so far. Ms Tymoshenko, the white-clad heroine of the “orange revolution”, reunites with Mr Yushchenko and scores a famous victory in a parliamentary election last October. The “villain” (and former prime minister), Viktor Yanukovich, is defeated and recedes into the background. After three months of bargaining Ms Tymoshenko becomes prime minister and forms a coalition government.
欢迎收看乌克兰政治肥皂剧的最新一集，本剧 由总理季莫申科和总统尤先科联袂出演。简单介绍一下至今为止的剧情。季莫申科是身披白袍的“橙色革命”女英雄，她与尤先科结盟取得了去年十月议会选举的胜 利。“大恶人”（前总理）亚努科维奇被击败后一蹶不振。经过三个月的讨价还价后，季莫申科成为新总理，并组成联合政府。
Then Mr Yushchenko gets jealous of his more popular partner. Instead of letting her run the government as he promised, he starts interfering in almost every decision and publicly scolding Ms Tymoshenko. She tolerates this humiliation for several months, then explodes.
不久，尤先科对这位广受欢迎的政治伙伴心生嫉妒，他开始干预每项决定，公开指责季莫申科，而他此前曾承诺让季莫申科主管政事。季莫申科对这种羞辱忍了几个月，然后爆发了。
On May 13th Ms Tymoshenko’s party blocked the podium to stop Mr Yushchenko addressing the Rada (parliament), the first time a parliamentary majority has done this. Enter a supporting character: Viktor Baloha, the president’s chief of staff, who is plotting against the coalition and accuses Ms Tymoshenko of building a “fascist regime”. The episode ends with the orange alliance at breaking-point—and a paralysis of decision-making in Ukraine.
5月13号，季莫申科的政党封锁了议会主席台以阻止尤先科在议会发表演讲，这还是议会多 数党第一次作出如此举动。总统幕僚长Viktor Baloha当然是站在总统一边，他正在策划反对联合政府，并且指控季莫申科建立了一个“法西斯政权”。在这一集的结尾，橙色联盟走到了一个转折点，乌克 兰政局陷入瘫痪。
The country has two heads of the state property fund, but neither achieved any privatisations. Ms Tymoshenko and Mr Yushchenko have not spoken for six weeks; both are said to have talked to Mr Yanukovich instead. In the meantime, inflation is approaching 30%, corruption is thriving and reforms have stalled.
乌克兰国家基金有两个主席，但是没有一个在推动私有化方面取得哪怕一点成绩。季莫申科和尤先科已经六个星期没有对话了，他们都说要转而与亚努科维奇会谈。与此同时，通货膨胀率已经达到30%, 腐败日益猖獗，改革也已经停滞。
Few ideological differences separate Mr Yushchenko and Ms Tymoshenko. Both want Ukraine in the European Union and NATO, both advocate a free-market economy. When they work together, they can be effective, as they were in bringing Ukraine into the World Trade Organisation. But with a presidential election due by the end of 2009, short-term political manoeuvres now take precedence.
导致尤先科和季莫申科分崩离析的原因很少是由于意识形态分歧。他们都希望乌克兰加入欧盟和北约，都主张实行自由市场经济。他们共事时可以很有效率，比方说他们已成功将乌克兰带入世界贸易组织。但是由于2009年末即将举行大选，短期政治策略现在是头等大事。
In truth, rivalry and squabbles have haunted Ukraine ever since the orange revolution. But because the economy has been doing well, most Ukrainians have paid little heed. Now this luxury is disappearing. One reason why inflation is so high is that Ukraine’s central bank, which is under Mr Yushchenko’s control (he once ran it), is keeping the hryvnia’s peg to the dollar, thus “importing inflation”. Anders Aslund, an economist, argued recently that Mr Yushchenko “seems more interested in harming [Ms Tymoshenko] politically than in capping inflation”.
事实 上，自橙色革命之后，党派纷争一直困扰着乌克兰，但是因为经济表现良好，大多数老百姓对此并没在意。现在大好形势已成过眼云烟，通货膨胀如此严重的一个原 因是尤先科掌控之下的央行（他曾是央行行长）实施“盯住美元”的政策，这导致从国外“进口”了通胀（译者注：由于美元贬值，乌克兰货币随之贬值，这导致乌 克兰进口货物价格上升，即经济学中的“导入型”通胀）。最近经济学家Anders Aslund称尤先科“看起来更关心如何在政治上打压季莫申科，而不是抑制通胀。”
Ms Tymoshenko’s populism does not help. She has started to compensate Ukrainians for their savings lost in the high inflation of the early 1990s. Public spending has not increased overall, but it is now skewed more to social payouts. Ms Tymoshenko might prefer to be fired (again) than to be blamed for failing to curb inflation. But that is precisely why Mr Yushchenko wants to keep her as long as possible. “Both sides know that the coalition does not work, but neither wants to pull the plug,” says a foreign diplomat.
季莫申科已经开始对乌克兰民众在90年代早期高通货膨胀时期的储蓄损失进行赔偿。公共开支虽未全面增长，但是 已经向社会福利支出倾斜，可季莫申科的民生主义对解决同膨胀也没发挥多大作用。与为没能控制住通胀承担责任相比，季莫申科更愿意被解职。可正是因为这样， 尤先科想让季莫申科留在台上，而且时间越长越好。一位外交官说“双方都明白联盟已是名存实亡，但是任何一方都不想把脸撕破。”
There is little doubt that Ms Tymoshenko is a politician obsessed with power, whereas Mr Yushchenko is more driven by his vision of Ukraine as a democratic European country. But that does not, of itself, make him more effective. Even his allies blame him in part for the current mess. He has surrounded himself with shadowy advisers and been dragged into petty squabbles between rival camps. He has not allowed Ms Tymoshenko the freedom to do her job. Hryhory Nemyria, deputy prime minister, says that the president’s office issued 800 instructions to the government in just 100 days.
季莫申科是个迷信权力的政治家，这毫无疑问。尤先科则更忠实于他的理念——把乌克兰建设成一个现代民主国家， 但这并没让他更专心于国家大事，即使他的盟友都指责他要为目前混乱的政局负部分责任。尤先科身边都有太多的谋士，他已经陷入敌对阵营间斗争的漩涡。他也没 有向季莫申科充分放权。副总理Hryhory Nemyria说在仅仅100天内总统办公室就向政府发布了800条指示。
A deeper reason for the chronic political crisis is that Ukraine’s constitution does not satisfactorily divide the powers of the president and prime minister. Both camps want to change this, but each wants to serve its own interests, says Oleh Rybachuk, Mr Yushchenko’s former chief of staff. Ms Tymoshenko wants a stronger role for the prime minister. This, she argues, would be better for Ukraine’s EU aspirations and less divisive. “Presidential elections split the country between the west and east,” says Mr Nemyria.
造成持续不断的政治危机的更深层次 原因是乌克兰宪法并没有划清总统和总理的职权。总统前幕僚长Oleh Rybachuk说，双方阵营都想修改宪法以使自己处于更有利的地位。季莫申科希望总理这一角色更重要。她说这可以减少乌克兰与欧洲的不同之处，有利于乌 克兰更好的融入欧洲。Nemyria说“总统选举把这个国家分裂成了亲西方和亲俄罗斯的两派。”
This would be more convincing if Ukraine’s parties were not simply vehicles for their leaders and their financial backers. “If you remove Ms Tymoshenko from her party, it would simply cease to exist,” says Mr Rybachuk. At times, Ms Tymoshenko’s party resembles a cult, but her charisma does not extend to her colleagues. In the recent mayoral election in Kiev, her candidate lost to the incumbent, despite her insistence that “he is me without the plait”.
如果乌克兰的政党不仅仅是其领导人的竞选工具和财政后台，这个论调会更令人信服。Rybachuk说， “如果你把季莫申科从她的政党剔除出去，那么这个政党就会不复存在。”有时候季莫申科的政党更像是对她顶礼膜拜的宗教组织，可惜她的魅力并没有传到她的党 内同仁身上。在最近的基辅市长选举中，季莫申科联盟的候选人输给了现任市长，尽管季莫申科一直强调“他就是没有辫子的我。”
Unlike Ms Tymoshenko, Mr Yushchenko does not have much of a following, even within his own party. “After the orange revolution, Our Ukraine had a chance to become a really democratic party and include people who had stood on Maidan Square. Instead it has become a party of the nomenklatura,” concedes Mr Rybachuk.
与季莫申科不同的是，尤先科没那么多追随者，即使在他自己的党内。“经过橙色革命后，我们的乌克兰本有机会成为真正的民主政党，代表那些曾经站在Maidan广场（译者注：橙色革命发生的地方）的人，但是它却变成了权贵政党。”Rybachuk这样总结道。
For all its chaos, however, Ukraine is now a recognisable democracy with free media and a strong opposition. The all-pervasive fear is gone. In this respect, it is a lot healthier than Russia, where the prime minister and the president act almost as one. But being more democratic than Russia is no longer enough. Corruption, one of the country’s biggest problems before the orange revolution, is little better and infrastructure is still poor.
但正是由于持续不断的混乱，乌克兰现在成为受到认可的民主国家，它有自由的媒体，强 大的反对派。无处不在的恐惧感机已经经消失了。在这个方面，它比俄罗斯要好的多。在俄罗斯，总统和总理几乎可被视作一人。但是比俄罗斯更民主还不够，腐败 ——橙色革命前这个国家最严重的问题之一并无多大改观，基础设施也依然薄弱。
Indeed, a senior executive of IKEA says that it seems harder to open a store in Kiev than in Moscow. Judging from the mayoral election, things are unlikely to improve. Its winner was the incumbent, Leonid Chernovetsky, nicknamed “Cosmos” for his spaced-out and erratic behaviour and his allegiance to a local sect, the Embassy of God, which professes that “wealth is not for sissies”. It is impossible to say how the recent crisis will play out—probably in a messy compromise—but Ukrainian politicians are on borrowed time.
一位宜家高管说，事实上在基辅开一家店比在莫斯科更难。通过市长选举来看，事情确实没有多大改观。选举的胜者是现任 市长Leonid Chernovetsky，他思维天马行空，行事飘忽不定，因此他的绰号是“宇宙”。他效忠于地方实力派the Embassy of God,这个组织声称“财富不是为胆小鬼准备的。”很难说最近的危机将如何结束，很有可能以不光彩的妥协为结局，但是乌克兰的政治家们还是处在旧时代。
One sign that many voters are fed up is their strong interest in past leaders. A record number took part in a popular television show, “Great Ukrainians” (based on its British equivalent). The winner was Yaroslav the Wise, an 11th-century Kiev prince. Yaroslav once warned his children that “if you dwell in envy and dissension, quarrelling with one another, then you will perish yourselves and bring to ruin the land of your ancestors.” So far his advice has fallen on deaf ears.
选民们被喂的 过饱的一个标志是他们对历史伟人的强烈兴趣。一个非常受欢迎的节目“大乌克兰”（与大不列颠相似）创出收视率新高，冠军是Yaroslav the Wise，一位11世纪的基辅王子（译者注：他的统治下基辅罗斯公国的实力到达巅峰）。他曾警告他的孩子“如果你停滞于嫉妒，争执，与他人的争吵，那么你 将会毁灭自己和祖先的土地。”但是至今他的建议并未受到重视。
译者： jason http://www.ecocn.org/forum/viewthread.php?tid=11779&extra=page%3D1