英中對照
JACINDA ARDERN』S staff ran into a problem after she declared New Zealand free of the coronavirus in June. It was impossible to keep the prime minister on schedule, they griped, because she was constantly mobbed by supporters. Patrons jumped up to applaud her when she went out for dinner. Passers-by hung out of car windows to yell their thanks. At the convention of her party, Labour, one eulogiser declared her 「our nation’s saviour」.
自六月份阿德恩宣布紐西蘭新冠疫情清零之後，阿德恩的手下們便碰到了一個問題。他們抱怨道，總理按時參加行程變成了一件不可能的事情，因為她總是被支持者圍個水洩不通：出去吃個飯，就會被餐館的顧客們跑上前稱讚一番；路上遇到行人，大家也會探出車窗大聲表達謝意。在所在黨工黨舉行的大會上，一位致頌人將她稱為「我們國家的救世主」。
Even after a modest resurgence of the disease, New Zealanders continued to commend Ms Ardern for averting the worst. She closed their borders to foreigners and rallied a 「team of 5m」 (ie, everyone in the country) to support one of the toughest lockdowns in the world. As a result, New Zealand has seen only 25 deaths from covid-19. Many voters, says Ben Thomas, a former government staffer under the opposition National Party, feel that Ms Ardern has 「literally saved them」.
即便疫情出現了一波小的反撲，但紐西蘭民眾仍不改好評，稱讚阿德恩避免了最壞的情況。阿德恩封鎖國界阻擋外國人入境，發動起一支「五百萬人的團隊」（其實就是每一位紐西蘭國民）共同支持這場全球最嚴的封鎖行動之一。成果就是，紐西蘭的新冠肺炎死亡人數僅有25人。本·託馬斯是反對黨國家黨的一位前官員，他表示，許多選民認為阿德恩「確確實實地拯救了他們」。
All this puts the prime minister on track for a big victory in an election on October 17th. The latest polls suggest that Labour may win 47% of the vote, which would give it 59 seats in the unicameral parliament. It needs 61 seats in the 120-seat chamber for an outright majority—a feat never achieved since New Zealand adopted a proportional voting system in 1996.
這些都使得阿德恩在10月17日的選舉中勝券在握。最近一次的民調顯示，工黨或可贏得47%的選票，這將使其在一院制的議會中獲得59個席位，要知道，在這120個席位中獲得61個就意味著贏得了絕對多數——自1996年紐西蘭採用比例投票制度後還從來沒有出現過這種壓倒性的勝利。
Either way, Ms Ardern will be in a far stronger parliamentary position than she is now. Labour actually lost the most recent election, in 2017, securing just 46 seats to National’s 56. Ms Ardern was able to form a government only with the support of New Zealand First, a populist party. Even then, she needed backing from the Greens, not formally part of the coalition.
無論怎樣，屆時阿德恩在議會中的話語權都將遠遠超過現在。事實上，在2017年舉行的上屆選舉中，工黨不幸敗北，僅獲得了46個席位，而作為反對黨的國家黨則拿到了56個席位。當時是在民粹主義黨派優先黨的支持下，阿德恩才得以組建了這屆政府。即便如此，她還需要從綠黨那裡獲得支持，而綠黨並非這一聯合政府的正式成員。
This time around, New Zealand First is unlikely to win any seats: it is polling well below the 5% minimum needed to guarantee a seat in parliament. Ms Ardern will not be losing any sleep about that. Winston Peters, New Zealand First’s leader, has obstructed her plans on everything from stronger hate-speech laws to a capital-gains tax. If Ms Ardern falls short of a majority, she will find a more compliant coalition partner in the Greens. Together, they might form the first wholly left-wing coalition to run the country in 20 years.
這一次，優先黨則不太可能贏得任何席位。民調顯示，其支持率遠遠低於5%，而只有達到了這一最低比例才能在議會中獲得席位。不過這一次，聯盟黨派的失利絕不會使阿德恩夜不能寐。從加強仇恨言論的法律規範，到徵收資本收益稅，優先黨黨魁溫斯頓·皮特斯在她的計劃上處處唱反調。倘若阿德恩這次未能贏得絕對多數，她將會在綠黨中選擇一位更聽話的搭檔結盟，這樣一來，就可能會由此產生紐西蘭20年來第一個純左翼的聯合政府。
What makes such a prospect all the more striking is that, before the pandemic, Ms Ardern was on track to lose the election. She came into office with lofty plans to 「build a fairer, better New Zealand」 by reducing child poverty, ending homelessness and erecting 100,000 cheap houses—none of which she has managed to do. She is lauded overseas for her forthright defence of immigrants after a massacre at two mosques in Christchurch in 2019, as well as for her upbeat, no-nonsense demeanour, especially regarding her pregnancy and maternity leave while in office. Many New Zealanders, however, used to grumble that she had achieved little of substance. 「On almost every front, this government has been a failure,」 says Oliver Hartwich of the New Zealand Initiative, a think-tank.
如果考慮到疫情發生前阿德恩的贏面還並不大，如今這一前景不免更加令人驚訝。此前，阿德恩是帶著宏大的計劃上臺的，旨在通過緩解兒童貧困，終結流離失所現象，建造10萬座廉價房屋，來「建設更加公平，更加美好的紐西蘭」——而目前，這些目標一個都沒有達成。2019年，克賴斯特徹奇市兩所清真寺發生了大規模殺戮之後，她直接坦率地為移民發聲的做法，以及她積極樂觀，不拖泥帶水的處事風格，尤其是在任期休產假期間的表現，這些都為她贏得了海外輿論的一片讚揚。然而，許多紐西蘭民眾卻對這位總理心懷不滿，抱怨她並未做出任何實事。「幾乎在每一個方面，這屆政府做得都很失敗」，奧利弗·哈特維奇如是說道，他就職於一家名為紐西蘭方案的智庫。
New Zealand’s rebuffing of covid-19 has put paid to that complaint. It helps, too, that the opposition has been in turmoil. National has churned through three leaders since May, and several of its senior MPs have resigned. Its latest boss, Judith 「Crusher」 Collins, is trying to look even tougher than Ms Ardern on the virus. She complains that the government allowed covid-19 back into New Zealand because it did not test officials who came into contact with returning travellers. National would guard the borders more fiercely, she says.
紐西蘭對新冠病毒的成功防禦徹底平息了這種抱怨。而另一個利好因素是，反對黨內部已亂作一團。自今年五月以來，國家黨已經連換了三屆領導人，還有幾位資深議員辭職。上一任黨魁，人稱「粉碎者」的朱迪斯·柯林斯試圖在新冠問題上表現出比阿德恩更加強硬的態度。她抱怨稱，由於政府並未對與歸國遊客接觸過的官員進行檢測，所以釀成了新冠的反撲。她表示，國家黨對邊境的防衛會更加嚴格。
National typically relies on votes from people who worry about the economy, which is in recession. To pep it up, Ms Collins pledges to cut income tax temporarily, returning NZ$3,000 ($2,000) to middle-income earners. But she undermined her own credibility on the subject by releasing an 「alternative budget」 which was subsequently found to include accounting errors of as much as NZ$8bn (2.5% of GDP). In contrast, the finance minister, Grant Robertson, has won acclaim by spending carefully before the pandemic, and then creating a popular wage-subsidy scheme. Polling suggests that Kiwis now have more faith in Labour than National to steer the economy.
國家黨通常依賴的選票是來自對經濟持擔憂態度的選民，而現下的經濟正處於衰退之中。為了進一步拉攏這些選民，柯林斯承諾將暫時削減收入稅，將3000紐西蘭元（合2000美元）還予中等收入者。但在這個問題上，她卻自毀信譽，發布的一項「替代性預算」隨後被發現高達80億紐西蘭元（相當於GDP的2.5%）的計算誤差。相較之下，經濟部長格蘭特·羅伯特森由於疫情之前在財政花費上的審慎態度得到了民眾的肯定，並在後來推出了一項頗受歡迎的工資補貼計劃。民調顯示，相比於國家黨，紐西蘭民眾現在更加信任工黨掌舵經濟的能力。
If things go well for Ms Ardern, it might follow that she would pursue a more radical agenda. Some right-wing voters shudder at the thought of what she could do if unshackled from a relatively conservative partner. Yet Labour’s policies are far less ambitious than last time round. The most contentious is a plan to increase income taxes. It applies only to people earning more than NZ$180,000—the top 2%—and even then at a rate of 39%, much lower than in many rich countries. This points to a potential conundrum. Ms Ardern positioned herself as a transforming leader. But to win enough seats to bring about sweeping change, she must secure votes from centrists who are wary of grandiose ideas. The more successful she becomes, the less radical she is likely to be. ■
如果一切順利，那麼下一步，阿德恩可能會力求實施更為激進的改革議程。一想到擺脫了相對保守的搭檔，阿德恩會做出怎樣的變革時，一些右翼選民不免後背發涼。但是，工黨的政策遠遠沒有上一次的宏大，其中最具爭議的是一項提高收入稅的計劃，而這項計劃也只針對收入超過18萬紐西蘭元的群體，即最上層的2%——更何況即便如此，39%的增幅仍然遠遠低於其他發達國家。這就造成了一種潛在的困局：阿德恩把自己定位為變革性的領導人，但若要贏得足夠的席位來實現這種顛覆性的變革，她就必須爭取到中間派的支持，而中間派素來對宏大的計劃持審慎態度。因此，阿德恩越是成功，激進的可能性就反而越小。■