[2008.01.03]Counting Thaksin's blessings感谢他信
Thailand
泰国
Counting Thaksin's blessings
感谢他信
Jan 3rd 2008 | BANGKOK
From The Economist print edition
By electing allies of the deposed prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, Thais have voted against the 2006 coup. But the country's worries are not over yet
泰国人在选举中投票支持被免职的总理他信·西那瓦（Thaksin Shinawatra）的盟友，以此方式来表示对2006年政变的反对。但是这个国家的烦恼仍未结束。
IN STARK contrast to the terrible political violence in Pakistan and Kenya, Thailand's election, on December 23rd, was mostly peaceful. It also, notwithstanding perennial complaints of vote-buying, seemed largely fair. More remarkably, the military chiefs who deposed the government of Thaksin Shinawatra in a coup in 2006 seemed to accept the public's decision to overrule the coup and restore Mr Thaksin's allies to power in the form of the People's Power Party (PPP), a reincarnation of his disbanded Thai Rak Thai (TRT).
同巴基斯坦和肯尼亚恶劣的政治暴力完全不同，泰国12月23日的选举非常平静。尽管总是存在对贿选的抱怨，但总体上说，这次选举是公正的。更引人注目的是，虽然军方在 2006年的政变中推翻了他信·西那瓦领导的政府，但是军方领袖似乎接受了公众的决定：民众反对政变，并且投票支持他信盟友“人民力量党” （People's Power Party）掌权，而人民力量党可以看作是被解散的他信的泰爱泰党（Thai Rak Thai）的化身。
Mr Thaksin, too, has struck a conciliatory note. This week he said he would return from exile soon and invite the coupmakers to a round of golf. “For the sake of the country's reconciliation”, he would meet his nemesis, General Prem Tinsulanonda, the chief adviser to King Bhumibol, and the man widely presumed to be the mastermind behind the coup.
他信先生谈及此事也很欣慰。本周，他表示他将尽快返回泰国并邀请政变组织者们打一场高尔夫。“为了国家和解”，他将和他的政敌炳·廷素拉暖（Prem Tinsulanonda）将军会面。廷素拉暖先生是泰国国王普密蓬（Bhumibol）的首席顾问，被普遍认为是政变的幕后策划者。
If so, Thailand may emerge from two years of political strife and regain its former status as a beacon of multi-party democracy in Asia. Until recently such an outcome had seemed improbable. In October a memo came to light detailing the junta's plans, through spreading black propaganda and fomenting anti-Thaksin protests, to subvert the election to thwart a PPP victory. However, embarrassed by the plan's discovery, and perhaps disheartened by months of unpopularity, the junta seems to have dropped the plan and let the people decide.
假如这样的话，泰国将摆脱两年来的政治冲突，重新成为亚洲多党派民主政治的灯塔。直到最近，这似乎都是不可能的。10月，1份备忘录揭露出了军人集团的详细计划，通过散布“妖魔化”的宣传和煽动“反他信”的抗议，来破坏选举，阻止“人民力量党”获胜。然而，由于计划曝光使得他们陷入困境，也许还因为逐渐失去人民支持使他们感到沮丧，这个集团似乎已经放弃了该计划，而让人民自己做决定。
A potential spanner in the works is a decision by the Election Commission, due later this month, on which winning candidates will be disqualified for electoral malpractice. Early in the campaign the commission announced absurdly stringent regulations, raising fears it might apply them partially, to disqualify PPP candidates, or indeed the entire party, on flimsy grounds. The commission later absolved the junta over its plot to subvert the election, arguing that the conspiracy had not been enacted and thus no harm was done. If it is consistent it will judge poll-fraud allegations by the same yardstick, disqualifying elected members only if their rule-breaking may have altered the results. Early this week there were signs of splits in the commission, with one of its members saying he wanted to quit.
预计在本月末会有一个潜在的危险出现，选举委员会可能做出决定，取消一些获胜候选人的资格，因为他们在选举中使用了不当手段。在竞选早期，选举委员会宣布了一些荒谬严厉的规则，恐怕它会使用其中部分条款，以一些根本站不住脚的理由来取消这些人民力量党候选人的参选资格，甚至可能是整个人民力量党的资格。选举委员会随后宣布不追究军人集团意图破坏选举的阴谋，因为这个阴谋并没有开展，因此也没有造成损失。如果它是始终如一的话，那么它会以同样的标准来判断选举德欺诈行为，只有当这些当选议员们破坏规则的行为改变了结果的时候，才能取消他们的资格。本周早些时候，选举委员会出现了一些分裂的迹象，其中一名成员表示他想退出委员会。
It had been widely assumed that the PPP would get the most seats but not enough to prevent its main rival, the Democrat party, from forming a governing coalition. However, the Thaksinites did better than expected, winning 233 seats, only eight short of a majority in the 480-seat lower house (see chart). This was in spite of a recent change to the electoral system—to merge single-seat constituencies into ones returning up to three members—that seemed designed to encourage Mr Thaksin's supporters to spread their votes around other parties. As the extent of the PPP's victory became clear on election night, Samak Sundaravej, Mr Thaksin's stand-in as party leader, insisted he would be prime minister. By the middle of this week it seemed as if the PPP had persuaded most or all of the five minor parties that won seats to join its coalition. This would give it a big enough majority to withstand all but an extravagant number of disqualifications.
人们普遍认为人民力量党将夺得最多席位，但是还不足以阻挡它的主要对手民主党组成联合政府。然而，他信主义者做的比预期要好，赢得了480个下院席位中的 233个，只差8个就能成为多数党。这还是在选举体系近来做了一些变化的情况下取得的。新的选举体系将单一议席选区合并成一个并选出3名候选人，这似乎是为了怂恿他信先生的支持者们给其它政党投票。在选举之夜，当人民力量党的胜利变的明朗时，该党主席，被认为是他信替身的沙马•顺达卫（Samak Sundaravej）坚称他将出任总理。在本周中，看上去人民力量党好像已经说服了部分或者所有5个赢得席位的小党加入它领导的联合政府。这将使该党能获得多数党地位，除非被剥夺资格的人过多。
Mr Thaksin took full advantage of his crushing majority in the last parliament, pushing his cronies into key institutional jobs while scorning his critics. His allies' new government may not have it so easy. For one thing, the Democrats emerged stronger from the election, gaining 165 seats, up from 96 in the 2005 election (when the lower house had 500 seats), so they should provide more effective opposition. Furthermore, a new constitution narrowly approved in a referendum in August strengthens the checks and balances against an over-mighty executive. This includes a dubious change in which some Senate members will be appointed by judges and officials (the rest will be elected, probably in March).
他信先生充分利用了他在最后一届议会中多数党的优势，不顾他人反对，将他的亲信放在关键职位上。他的同盟者的新政府也许不会轻易的做到这一点。首先，民主党在选举中更强大了，获得了165个席位，比2005年选举时多出了96个席位（当时下院有500个席位），这样他们可以做出更有效的反对。此外，在8月份的***中勉强通过的一部新宪法加强了对强力执政者的控制和平衡。这包括一个不确定的变化，即一些上院议员要由法官和政府职员指定（其余的将通过选举决定，大约在3月举行）。
Ideally the PPP-led government would offer the advantages of the previous TRT ones—sound macroeconomic management and policies to aid poor rural villagers—without the disadvantages, such as Mr Thaksin's autocratic tendencies and conflicts of interest. To boost flagging economic growth and weak investment, confidence in the stability and competence of government needs to be restored swiftly.
人民力量党领导的理想的政府应该提供一些以前泰爱泰党曾经提供过的优惠，例如有效的经济管理和对贫穷村民的援助政策，但是应抛弃那些缺点，例如他信先生的独裁趋势和违背公众利益的行为。要想推动逐渐衰退的经济和疲软的投资向前发展，就必须尽快恢复人民对政府稳定性和执政能力的信心。
Samak the knife
沙马是柄双刃剑
However, Thailand's political strife may not yet be over. Mr Samak, abrasive and uncouth, may prove an even more divisive prime minister than Mr Thaksin. Mr Samak is a staunch royalist but he is also a foe of General Prem, so it cannot be guaranteed that the generals and the Thaksinites will kiss and make up, especially since Mr Samak wants to lift Mr Thaksin's five-year ban from politics, and halt the corruption inquiries the coupmakers instigated against him. Mr Thaksin insists he has retired from politics but not everyone believes he will keep his word. If he or close relatives take top jobs in the new administration, and especially if he uses his restored power to seek revenge on the coupmakers, he risks renewed street protests and a reaction from the army's hardliners.
然而，泰国的政治冲突也许尚未结束。沙马先生的生硬粗暴和他的笨拙粗鲁也许会证明，他担任总理会带来比他信先生更大的分裂。沙马先生是个坚定的保皇派，但他也是炳将军的反对者，所以这不能保证将军们会和他信主义者们亲吻和解，特别是沙马先生希望解除他信先生5年内禁止涉足政坛的禁令，并且停止政变者针对他信先生的贪污调查。他信先生强调他已经从政坛“退休”，但并不是每个人都相信他的诺言。如果他或者他的近亲在新政府中得到一些重要职位，特别是如果他利用重新得到的权力向政变者寻求报复，他可能会遭遇新一轮的街头抗议和军队强硬派的强烈反弹。
In the absence of such a disaster, history may look kindly on the perpetrators of Thailand's 18th coup since the end of absolute monarchy in 1932. They spilled no blood and kept their promise to restore democracy promptly. But they and their supporters would have been more nefarious had Thai public opinion not stopped them: they tried to insert a clause in the new constitution granting themselves sweeping powers in the event of a political conflict, and then tried to achieve the same by means of an ordinary law, which the military-appointed interim assembly watered down before passing last month.
没有这些灾祸，那么自1932年泰国结束君主专制后的第18次政变的组织者将会在历史上留个好名声。他们没有引发流血冲突，并且遵守承诺迅速恢复民主。但是如果泰国的民意没有阻止他们，他们和他们的支持者也许会有更出格的举动：他们试图在新宪法中加入一条，即如果发生政治冲突，宪法将赋予他们最广泛的权力。随后，他们试图通过一部普通的法律达到这一目标，这部法律是上个月在它通过之前由军队指定的临时大会顺势通过的。
The generals signally failed to prove the claims of “rampant corruption” and other misdeeds by Mr Thaksin used to justify the coup. Worse, they did nothing to correct the most heinous abuses of his administration: extrajudicial killings by police during a 2003 “war on drugs” and two massacres in 2004 of Muslim protesters by security forces in Thailand's troubled south. The junta and those among the fickle Bangkok elite who excused the coup should have learned their lesson that extra-constitutional excursions do not solve problems. That, however, may be too much to hope.
将军们显然没能证明他信先生的“猖狂的贪污”和其它罪行以显示政变是正当的。更糟糕的是，他们没有为纠正他信政府的最恶劣的行为做任何事：警察在2003 年的“毒品战争”中未经法庭审判的杀戮和2004年发生的两次屠杀，安全部队在麻烦不断的泰国南部杀害了许多穆斯林抗议者。军人集团和那些为政变申辩的曼谷的精英们应该已经得到教训了，超越宪法的行为不能解决任何问题。然而，这也许是异想天开。 |
