马来西亚选举,遭遇"华人海啸"

“What else do the Chinese want?” screamed the banner headline in one of Malaysia’s most widely read, pro-Malay newspapers.

马来西亚发行量最大并且亲马来人的报纸之一在一条通栏标题中嚷道：“华人还想要什么？”

If anything summed up the real outcome of the southeast Asian country’s general election this week, it was this.

如果说有哪句话可以概括这个东南亚国家本周大选的实际结果，这句话就足以。

Malaysia, one of the region’s economic success stories and most remarkable multi-ethnic experiments, is struggling with worrying divisions.

马来西亚正陷入令人担心的分裂之中。马来西亚是东南亚地区经济发展取得成功的案例之一，同时也是一个引人注目的多族裔共处国家。

The party that improved most at this election, the most bitterly fought since Malaysia’s independence from Britain in 1957, was neither the main ruling party, the United Malays National Organisation (Umno), nor the opposition led by Anwar Ibrahim, probably Malaysia’s best-known political figure.

这是自1957年马来西亚脱离英国殖民统治获得独立以来最激烈的一次选举。在各个政党中，选举成绩较上次选举有明显提升的既不是主要执政党马来民族统一机构（United Malays National Organisation，简称巫统），也不是马来西亚政坛上最有名的人物安瓦尔•易卜拉欣(Anwar Ibrahim)领导的反对党。

It was the Democratic Action party, the opposition coalition’s Chinese party. It not only won more seats than Mr Anwar’s party but trounced a candidate for the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition – of which Umno is the biggest member – in the key state of Johor, next to Singapore.

选绩进步最多的是反对党联盟中的华裔政党民主行动党(Democratic Action)。该党不仅夺得比安瓦尔所在政党更多的席位，而且还在关键的柔佛州（与新加坡毗邻）击败了一位来自执政联盟——国民阵线联盟（Barisan Nasional，简称国阵）的候选人。巫统是国阵中最大的政党。

Najib Razak, sworn in as prime minister yesterday, recognised this as – in his own words – a “Chinese tsunami”. He is right to be concerned. Malaysia’s ethnic Chinese have been increasingly disaffected by a system of pro-Malay affirmative action policies that not only hand Malays privileged access to the country’s economic spoils but are crowding out Chinese children from the education system. They have apparently had enough.

周三宣誓就任马来西亚总理的纳吉布•拉扎克(Najib Razak)承认，这是一场“华人海啸”（这是他的原话）。他的担心是有道理的。马来西亚华裔对亲马来人的“扶弱政策”(affirmative action)越来越不满。扶弱政策不仅赋予马来人在获取经济利益方面的特权，而且还将华裔子女挤出教育体系。华裔群体显然已经受够了。

Making matters worse, Mr Anwar has still not conceded the election. He says the poll was stolen, accusing the election commission of complicity in fraud. The accusations range from the use of supposedly indelible ink that could be washed off, to the padding of marginal seats in key states with voters flown in from other parts of Malaysia.

更为糟糕的是，安瓦尔仍不承认此次选举结果。他表示，选票被窃取，并指责选举委员会合谋舞弊。他提出多项指控，包括使用可以被轻易抹掉的所谓不褪色墨水投票，以及从其他地区派选民到胜选希望不大的关键州投票凑数。

The government has denied any impropriety and called such claims sour grapes. But awkwardly for Mr Najib, this election, the 13th in the country’s history, was already going to be close. Mr Anwar’s Pakatan Rakyat (People’s Alliance) rode a wave of popular disgust at corruption and cronyist links between Umno and Malay businesses to its best performance yet.

政府方面否认存在任何不当行为，并称此类指控是出于“酸葡萄心理”。但让纳吉布尴尬的是，在这场马来西亚历史上的第十三次选举中，两大阵营的实力颇为接近。安瓦尔率领的人民联盟(Pakatan Rakyat，简称民联)取得了历来最好的成绩，这是得益于公众普遍憎恶腐败以及巫统与马来企业之间的裙带关系。

Swaths of urban Malay voters peeled away from Barisan, worsening a gulf between the two that was first exposed at the last election in 2008. Not only did Mr Anwar’s side win 89 seats in parliament – one seat more than Umno, it is worth noting – but it actually won the popular vote. Barisan Nasional clinched the poll in the end, but that was largely because of the ballast of a loyal base in rural heartlands and a gerrymandered constituency system that favours the incumbent.

大量的马来裔城市选民抛弃了国阵，这加剧了两大阵营在2008年上次选举中首次曝出的深刻分歧。安瓦尔执掌的民联不仅赢得了89个国会席位（有必要指出的是，这比巫统还多出一个席位），而且实际上还赢得了人头票(popular vote)。虽然国阵最终赢得了选举，但这在很大程度上归功于农村地区稳定的忠实选民基础，以及有利于现任政府的选区划分体系。

This is not the sort of result that gives Mr Najib much of a mandate to take Malaysia to the next level of economic development and lead it out of a “middle income” trap. The election leaves Malaysia in the grip of a narrow “Umnocracy”, shorn of support from moderate Malays and Chinese, who alone make up a quarter of the population.

这种选举结果无法赋予纳吉布多少权力来领导马来西亚步入下一个经济发展阶段，带领国家走出“中等收入”陷阱。此次选举将马来西亚置于狭隘的“巫统政体”(Umnocracy)支配之下，丧失了马来裔温和派和华裔的支持。仅华人就占到马来西亚人口的四分之一。

Barisan had recently been cultivating an image of wasatiyyah, Malay for moderation. The arrival of Umnocracy makes this harder to attain.

国阵最近致力打造一种“中庸”形象。“巫统政体”的成型使这个目标更难实现。

The immediate challenge for Mr Najib is to survive. This seems a strange statement, given his side won. But his Umno was brutally unforgiving of his predecessor and sacked him after presiding over the loss of Barisan’s two-thirds majority at the last election.

纳吉布迫在眉睫的挑战是成功留任。这听起来有些奇怪，毕竟是他所在的阵营赢得了大选。但在上次大选中由于巫统失去了国会三分之二的多数席位，纳吉布的前任遭到巫统毫不留情的抛弃。

Umno would be wise to reflect that the forces that gave Mr Anwar’s coalition its best showing yet – demands for a free media and an end to rampant corruption – are not going away. Umno may be an inward-looking party, but it needs to understand that the foreign investment community is watching this stage of the “Malaysian experiment” very carefully.

巫统最好反思一下，让安瓦尔领导的民联获得迄今最佳成绩的因素——要求媒体自由和打击腐败——并未消失。巫统可能是一个保守内向的政党，但它有必要明白，外国投资界正非常仔细地观看着现阶段的“马来西亚实验”。

Mr Najib – for all his faults, including a certain technocratic hesitation – must be given a chance to push through his reformist agenda, otherwise you can write off Malaysia for the next five years.

纳吉布尽管存在种种不足，比如具有技术官僚犹豫不决的特点，但应该让他有机会推行自己的改革议程，否则投资者今后5年可能就要抛弃马来西亚了。