日本政坛的怪客二人组

Shintaro Ishihara climbs atop a campaign van parked in front of the train station in Yokohama, just south of Tokyo, and addresses the crowd with his trademark bluntness.

石原慎太郎(Shintaro Ishihara)爬上停在横滨火车站前的一辆竞选车辆的车顶，以他标志性的直率向一群民众发表演说。横滨是位于东京南部的一座城市。

Japan is like the Titanic, Mr Ishihara suggests to several hundred supporters as he recounts the tragic tale of the passenger liner, which sank in the North Atlantic killing more than 1,500 people.

石原慎太郎在数百名支持者面前提到泰坦尼克号(Titanic)的悲剧故事，这艘客轮在北大西洋沉没，超过1500人遇难，他表示，日本当前的形势与泰坦尼克号无异。

“Even as the Titanic was sinking, the orchestra continued to play,” says Mr Ishihara. “If things get worse, this country will face the same fate.

石原慎太郎称：“在泰坦尼克号沉没的过程中，船上的乐队仍在继续演奏。如果日本的形势持续恶化，则可能面临和泰坦尼克号同样的命运。”

“We need to destroy this rigid government and in order to do that, we need new politicians in government,” he says.

他指出：“我们必须摧毁目前这个僵化的政府，为了实现这一点，我们应让新一代政治人物登上舞台。”

The former novelist turned rightwing politician, a four-term Tokyo governor who is often in the news for his controversial remarks, needs little introduction to Japanese voters. But he announced himself to a wider, global audience this year sparking a diplomatic crisis by trying to buy two islands in the East China Sea that are controlled by Japan but also claimed by China and Taiwan.

石原慎太郎在成为一名右翼政客之前曾是一位小说家，他曾四度出任东京都知事，并常因富于争议的言论在新闻媒体上抛头露面。日本选民对他已经颇为熟悉。但今年石原慎太郎使日本以外范围更广的观众知道了他的存在，他试图购买中国东海海域三座岛屿的举动引发了一场外交危机，这三座岛屿目前被日本控制，但中国大陆和台湾也声称对其具有领土权。

The repercussions are still being felt with tensions between Asia’s two biggest economies at their worst for years and Japanese manufacturers losing sales in China.

此次事件的余波目前仍未散去，这两大亚洲经济体之间的关系目前处于多年以来最为紧张的时期，日本制造企业在中国的销售额开始出现下滑。

The incident appears to have given the 80-year-old Mr Ishihara, who quit last month as Tokyo governor to run for a seat in the lower house of parliament in Sunday’s election, a taste for the national stage as the unlikely face of political change in Japan.

但这一事件似乎使现年80岁的石原慎太郎有兴趣作为日本政治改革的冷门代表人物登上国家政治舞台。为了在周日的竞选中角逐日本众议院席位，他已于上月辞去了东京都知事一职。

He has joined forces with the charismatic mayor of Osaka, 43-year-old Toru Hashimoto, and assumed leadership of Mr Hashimoto’s Japan Restoration party. They are the odd couple of Japanese politics trying to create a serious third force in the country’s volatile political culture. The coupling looks more like a marriage of convenience than a long-term relationship, with both already having to compromise on policies and some confusion among voters about what the three-month-old party stands for.

石原慎太郎已与现年43岁、颇具个人魅力的大阪市长桥下彻(Toru Hashimoto)结成了竞选联盟，并成为桥下彻的“日本维新会”(Japan Restoration party)的领导人。这对古怪的搭档正在努力成为日本动荡的政坛文化中不可忽视的“第三极”。两人的结盟看起来更像是出于方便考虑，而非旨在结成长期合作关系，因为两人都需在政策主张方面做出妥协，为在选民中明确梳理这个成立仅三个月的政党的政治立场也需做出让步。

Its aim, however, is clear. The party wants to exploit a wave of disillusionment with the political establishment and powerful bureaucrats, a dissatisfaction that brought the ruling Democratic party to power in 2009. An advocate of decentralisation, Mr Hashimoto, who is not a candidate in Sunday’s election, launched the Restoration party in Osaka in September as the first national political force based outside Tokyo.

然而这一同盟的目标非常明确。日本维新会希望利用人们对政治体制及掌权官僚的新一轮幻灭情绪——2009年类似的不满情绪曾将目前掌权的民主党送上权力顶峰。提倡地方分权的桥下彻并不是周日大选的候选人，今年9月他在大阪创立了日本维新会，这是日本第一个总部位于东京之外的全国性政党。

“Politics today doesn’t do anything for the people. Politicians don’t say anything that is true,” Mr Hashimoto says forcefully, after joining Mr Ishihara on top of the van.

在石原慎太郎之后桥下彻也爬上了车顶，他强硬地表态说：“如今的政治没有为人民办一件事，如今的政客没有一句真话。”

His party’s strength is concentrated in Osaka, where it has an organisation that has won local leadership and assembly elections, says Stephen Reed, professor of policy studies at Chuo University in Tokyo. And it relies on the popularity of Mr Hashimoto, who has won a strong following for his fiery rhetoric, war on wasteful public spending and calls for reform, often made on Twitter, where he has more than 900,000 followers.

东京中央大学(Chuo University)政策研究教授斯蒂芬·里德(Stephen Reed)表示，桥下彻政党的影响力集中于大阪附近，在这里该党赢得了当地政府的领导权以及议会选举。而这些则有赖于桥下彻的人气，他吸引大批追随者的法宝是狂热的言辞、对铺张的公共开支的大加鞭笞以及提倡改革的言论。这些言论经常发表在Twitter上，为此他在Twitter上拥有超过90万粉丝。

Mr Hashimoto is greeted with calls of “ganbatte”, or “good luck”, from the voters, who seem dazzled by the former lawyer who made his name first as a television personality, then as governor of Osaka prefecture, before becoming mayor of Japan’s second-largest city – a position he still holds.

桥下彻不时会听到选民的“加油”声。这些选民看起来为这位前律师的风采倾倒。桥下彻最初因电视节目成名，之后成为大阪府知事，后来任日本第二大城市大阪市市长至今。

Many would agree that Japan needs the strong leadership at a national level that Mr Ishihara and Mr Hashimoto have shown in local government. But with Mr Ishihara as representative and Mr Hashimoto as his deputy, the Restoration party suffers from confusion over its leadership and policies.

许多人会同意，石原慎太郎和桥下彻在地方政府中所显示出来的强势领导风格，正是日本在国家层面所需要的。然而日本维新会以石原慎太郎为党代表，以桥下彻为代理代表，这使该党处于一种领导和政治主张上的混乱状态。

While the two politicians share a nationalistic outlook, a populist appeal and a mission to fight government bureaucracy, their differences are also marked.

尽管这两位政治人物都有民族主义的观点、平民化的形象以及打击政府官僚主义的使命，他们的不同也非常明显。

Mr Ishihara belonged to Japan’s most established and faction-ridden political party, the LDP, for 25 years while Mr Hashimoto built his party from scratch, admitting only those who agreed with his policies.

石原慎太郎曾在日本势力最大、派系林立的政党自民党(LDP)中呆过25年。而桥下彻则从头组建了自己的政党，这一政党只允许认同他政治主张的人进入。

“I don’t know why Ishihara joined hands with Hashimoto. I don’t understand the Restoration party,” says Keiko Arima, an architectural consultant.

一位建筑顾问Keiko Arima表示：“我不知道为什么石原慎太郎要与桥下彻联手。我无法理解日本维新会。”

Even more damaging is the lack of clarity on the party’s policies.

更糟糕的是日本维新会的政治主张不够清晰。

Mr Hashimoto is against nuclear power, Mr Ishihara is a strong supporter and once even said Japan should consider developing nuclear weapons. The two are also at odds on whether Japan should open its markets more by joining the trans-Pacific partnership.

桥下彻反对核武器，而石原慎太郎强烈支持核武器——他甚至曾表态说日本应该考虑发展核武器。在日本是否应该通过加入“跨太平洋伙伴关系协议”(TPP)，来更大程度地开放日本市场这一问题上，两人的观点也不一致。

Such confusion partly explains the Restoration party’s relatively low public support in polls despite its hugely popular leaders.

这种政治主张上的混乱在一定程度上能解释，为何日本维新会的领导人极受欢迎，而该党在民调中的公众支持率却相对较低。

NHK, the public broadcaster, found the Restoration party in third place after the main opposition, Liberal Democratic party’s 24.7 per cent and the ruling Democratic party’s 17 per cent but with a support rating of just 4 per cent.

公共电视台NHK调查发现，目前支持率排名为，主要反对党自民党24.7%，执政党民主党17%，日本维新会虽然位居第三，但支持率只有4%。

Nevertheless, voter un-happiness with the main parties is such that the Restoration party is forecast to increase its lower house representation from 11 to about 35 members, according to a poll by the Asahi newspaper last week.

然而，《朝日新闻》(Asahi)上周的一项调查显示，由于选民对两大政党的不满，日本维新会在日本众议院的代表席位预计将从11人增加到大约35人。