Electoral brinkmanship in Japan
日本选举边缘化
A game of chicken
懦夫游戏
Yoshihiko Noda hopes to postpone elections, without a fiscal impasse
野田佳彦希望推迟选举不致引起财政僵局
BY RIGHTS, Yoshihiko Noda, Japan’s prime minister, does not need to convene a new session of the Diet, or parliament, until January. The temptation to wait seems obvious. His ruling block has a shaky eight-seat majority in the 480-seat lower house. Only when the Diet is in session can his opponents gather enough votes to depose him.
按理说，日本首相野田佳彦没有必要在明年一月前召开新一届国会（即“议会”）。等待的诱惑是显而易见的。野田所在的民主党人在具有480议席的国会中，仅以8票领先，而这8票还是不可靠的。一旦国会召开，他的反对者便能获取足够多的选票使他下台。
Yet a budget problem looms which the opposition hopes will force his hand. Compared with America’s, Japan’s immediate fiscal woes are more of a steep slope than a cliff. Earlier this year the lower house of the Diet approved the 2012-13 budget, but both houses have to pass a bill authorising the issue of ¥38.3 trillion ($490 billion) of bonds to cover its huge deficit. This the upper house, controlled by the opposition, has so far refused to do. It is angry at what the biggest opposition party, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), sees as Mr Noda’s broken promise some months back to call a general election “soon.”
然而日本政府隐现得预算问题使在野党人认为或可逼野田自己动手。与美国相比，日本眼下的财政困境急转直下。今年早些时候，国会众议院审批通过了2012-13年度政府预算，但若要靠发行38.3万亿日元（约合4900亿美元）的债券来弥补巨额赤字需要国会众参两院通过议案，予以认可。但受在野党控制下的参议院拒绝通过这项决议。在野党中最大的自民党（Liberal Democratic Party, LDP）认为野田在过去的几个月中背信弃义，呼吁尽快举行大选，这一行为让参议院大为光火。
A game of brinkmanship is therefore in play, one that alarms the Ministry of Finance, long the arbiter of fiscal rectitude. The ministry warns of a crisis of confidence in one of the world’s biggest bond markets. The chances of such a crisis, its officials say, will rise if no financing bill is approved by November, when the government will start to run out of money.
于是双方玩起了边缘游戏，这让作为财政清廉仲裁机构的财政部感到恐慌。财政部就全球最大债券市场的信任危机发出警告。财政部的官员表示，若在11月之前，融资法案仍未获通过，政府将开始耗尽资金，将很有可能出现信任危机。
In theory the prime minister has wiggle room. For instance, the government might issue short-term financial bills instead of longer-term bonds to tide it over—provided, the law stipulates, there is confidence that by March 31st, the end of the fiscal year, investors will be repaid. Yet the longer the bill authorising the deficit-financing bonds is delayed, the greater is the risk that a rush of bonds issued at the end of the fiscal year will swamp the market. So a passage of the bill in November is much to be preferred.
理论上，野田首相还有回旋的余地。例如，政府可以通过发行短期金融票据，而非长期债券来渡过难关。前提是，法律必须保证在本财年度结束时——也就是明年3月31日之前——投资者将得到偿还。但如果该赤字融资债券发行法案越拖越久，财年末的匆匆发行将极易使市场陷入困境。因此，该法案最好在11月时得以通过。
Knowing this, Mr Noda is probably keen to pass the bill soon. In return for its co-operation, the opposition will demand that he promises to dissolve the Diet in November. The election would then be held in early December.
意识到了这一点，野田也许将热切希望该法案尽快得以通过。作为合作的报答，在野党要求他承诺在11月时解散国会。随后的大选将在12初得以举行。
Mr Noda would probably lose. The prime minister’s popularity, according to the latest polls, is below that of the LDP’s new leader, Shinzo Abe. Mr Noda has alienated voters with flip-flops over nuclear power and a bill to raise the consumption tax that partially ruptured his Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ). Mr Noda’s chief hope is that the shine quickly comes off Mr Abe. A prime minister once before, in 2006-07, Mr Abe stepped down because of illness and government blunders. He remains controversial, not least because he holds provocatively nationalistic views: on October 17th he visited Tokyo’s Yasukuni shrine, which honours war criminals among Japan’s war dead. (Neither the DPJ nor the LDP is likely to be popular enough to govern without alliances, whoever wins the election.)
野田很有可能在选举中落败。根据最近的民意调查，野田首相的民众支持率落后于自民党新总裁安倍晋三。野田在核能问题上拖拖拉拉的表现使他失去了一些选民，而关于提高消费税的法案又使得其领导下的日本民主党（Democratic Party of Japan, DPJ）内产生部分破裂。野田现在最希望安倍的风头赶紧散去。安倍晋三曾在2006-07年任日本首相，后因健康原因和政府错误辞去首相职务。安倍仍是个颇具争议的人物，不仅仅因为他在民族主义上的激进表现：本月17号，安倍参拜靖国神社，那里供奉着包括战犯在内的日本战争的死难者。（无论谁赢得选举，不联盟的话，民主党和自民党都很难获得足够的民意支持以管理政府。）
Another obstacle may also have to be overcome before any election. The Supreme Court has declared the electoral system to be unconstitutional, because it gives too much voting power to rural constituencies in the lower house at the expense of urban voters. On October 14th the DPJ’s secretary-general, Azuma Koshiishi, suggested the party was prepared to go along with LDP proposals to scrap five of the offending single-seat constituencies in the lower house, without demanding a wider electoral reform. Yet even with such an agreement, it is not clear how long it would take to draw up new boundaries.
选举前恐怕还有一个障碍需要克服。日本最高法院认为现行的选举制度不符合宪法。按现在选举制度来看，众议院的农村选区的投票权过高，因而牺牲了城市选民的权益。10月14号，民主党干事长舆石东表示，将赞同自民党的提议，在不要求更大范围内的选举制度改革下，废除众议院下的五个违规的单议席选区。尽管双方就此达成了共识，但至于何时能重新划分选区目前尚不清楚。
It all points to ways in which Mr Noda might hang on to power beyond December, though probably for no more than a month or two. In the meantime, however, the parliament would remain paralysed, with little Mr Noda could do to exercise power. That then would give an excuse to the opposition to propose a vote of no confidence. It remains eight votes short of victory. But for how long?
现在问题的关键都指向了野田首相如何执政到12月以后，尽管也就不到两个月的时间了。同时，由于野田无法充分行使其权利，国会将继续处于瘫痪状态。在野党借此提出举行不信任投票。丹药取得胜利还有八票之差，但这一情况还能持续多久呢？
经济学家
2012-10-20
经济学家
658次
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