2017年11月23日

マレーシアの首相はもうじき選挙を行うだろう。 横領に関与しているもかかわらず、彼はおそらく勝つだろう。

Malaysia’s prime minister will call an election soon
Despite being implicated in embezzlement, he may well win
Nov 9th 2017 | KUALA LUMPUR

マレーシアの首相はもうじき選挙を行うだろう。
横領に関与しているもかかわらず、彼はおそらく勝つだろう。

be implicated in the conspiracy:陰謀に関与している



THE opposition, naturally, has been making hay out of the goings-on at 1MDB, a Malaysian state-owned investment fund. Over the past few months it took a road show, complete with snazzy slides on shell companies and international transfers, to rural areas to explain how almost $4bn of taxpayers’ money was siphoned out of the firm—quite a lot of it, American investigators say, by Najib Razak, the prime minister. But in the two years since the scandal first broke, Mr Najib (pictured) has worked assiduously to bury it, while purging opponents and distracting voters. He now looks ready to call—and win—an election. 

naturally:予想されるように, 当然(ながら)
hay:make hay out of…を上手に利用する
road show:巡回興行[公演・展示・宣伝]〈和製英語〉ロードショー◆【標準英語】preview
snazzy:〈服・車などが〉明るく派手な; しゃれた.
shell company:ペーパーカンパニー
assiduously:根気強く
opponents:ライバル
distracting:人の気を散らす[そらす, 紛らす]

Mr Najib does not dispute that roughly $700m entered his personal bank accounts shortly before the previous election, in 2013. But he says it was a gift from an unnamed Saudi royal, and that most of it was returned. (The donor, Mr Najib’s allies say, was Prince Turki bin Abdullah, who was recently arrested for alleged corruption.) America’s Justice Department, however, says the money was looted from 1MDB. 

Nancy disputed the policeman's account of the incident.:ナンシーはその事件についての警官の説明に異を唱えた

America, Switzerland and Singapore have conducted investigations into 1MDB. In theory, Malaysia has too. But the only person convicted in Malaysia in relation to the scandal is an opposition politician who leaked parts of the auditor-general’s investigation because the government declared it an official secret. Mr Najib fired the attorney-general for pursuing the matter, and then other senior members of his party, the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), when they protested. 

Although prosecutors show no interest in the billions stolen from 1MDB, they are always on the lookout for misdeeds by the opposition. Anwar Ibrahim, a leader of Pakatan Harapan (PH), an opposition coalition, has been put behind bars for sodomy (a crime in Malaysia), on flimsy evidence. Later this month the government will oppose a suit calling for his release. 

lookout: keep a (sharp) lookout for を(しっかり)見張る, (十分)気をつける.
misdeeds:不正行為
flimsy:〈言い訳・説明などが〉(浅はかで)信じがたい,

Meanwhile another senior figure in PH, Lim Guan Eng, the chief minister of the state of Penang, conveniently faces two sets of corruption charges (he is accused of buying a house at an artificially low price). Two leaders of an opposition party in the state of Sabah, set up by a former vice-president of UMNO sacked as a minister for complaining about 1MDB, have also been scooped up in a recent corruption probe. 

scooped:scoop out the flesh with a spoon スプーンで果肉を取り出す.

Piety before propriety
Meanwhile UMNO has positioned itself as the defender of Islam, the faith of the Malay majority. This worries ethnic-Chinese and -Indian voters, the largest minority groups. Mr Najib is courting a conservative Islamic party as a possible new member of his ruling coalition, the Barisan Nasional. It supports public caning and other harsh punishments. 

Piety:敬虔 信心
courting:They have successfully courted support in America. 彼らはアメリカの支持をうまく取り付けた.
caning:鞭打ち

When a launderette in the state of Johor put up a sign in September that read “For Muslim customers only”, Mr Najib, the head of a multi-ethnic coalition, kept mum. Instead, the local sultan, who is the head of the Muslim faith in the state, rebuked the owners for discriminating against minorities. Last month he and the country’s eight other sultans, who take it in turns to serve as head of state, released an unusual statement deploring growing Muslim intolerance as “beyond all acceptable standards of decency”. 

launderette:laundromat コインランドリー
mum:Keep [Stay] mum about our plot. 我々のたくらみのことは黙っていろ.
rebuked:を強く非難[𠮟責]する
deploring:The government deplored the bombing. 政府はその爆破事件を非難した
intolerance:不寛容
decency:common decency 社会常識, 良識

Gerrymandering will also help Mr Najib. At the last election, although the opposition won 51% of the vote, it secured only 40% of the 222 seats in parliament. The election commission, with government-appointed members, has proposed boundaries for the next contest which will see even more of those who usually vote for the opposition, such as the ethnic-Chinese, crammed into huge constituencies, many of them urban. 

crammed:The room is crammed with magazines and books. その部屋には雑誌や本がびっしり詰まっている.

In practice this means their votes count for less than those of Malays in sparsely populated rural constituencies, who tend to favour UMNO. The state of Selangor, controlled by an opposition party, has challenged the new boundaries; a decision in the past week by the federal court allows them to stand everywhere else. 

Mr Najib is also showering voters with cash. The 280bn ringgit ($66bn) budget for 2018, announced late last month, cuts taxes for more than 2m people. It also provides bonuses to some 1.6m civil servants which will be paid in two instalments—the first in January and the second in June—with the election likely to fall between the two. Billions will be set aside for rural infrastructure, too. 

$66bn!!!
Set aside time for your children. : 子どもたちと過ごす時間を確保してください。

Not everything is going the prime minister’s way. The PH coalition has been boosted by the inclusion of a new party, Bersatu, founded by Mahathir Mohamad, a former prime minister and head of UMNO for more than two decades. It signed up around 200,000 members in just a few months. 

Mahathir Mohamad recently is against Najib for his embezzlement.

Confronted with a strengthening opposition, Mr Najib might choose to hold the election sooner, rather than later. But a vote in the next two months would probably coincide with seasonal flooding in rural areas, which might both suppress the vote and make the voters who do turn out irritable. A short delay could avoid this. But the prime minister will not want to wait for long, given that Mr Anwar may walk free as early as April. The sweet spot may come after Chinese New Year in February. For those opposed to Mr Najib, however, the outcome may be bitter. 

suppress:抑える

ナジブ首相が公金横領の疑惑にも関わらず、次の選挙を狙っている。都市部では地盤が弱いので、地方に有利なように、票の割り振りをしている。減税とか公務員へのボーナスを考えている。早く選挙をしないと中国の正月とかアンワールの釈放がなされてしまうと選挙が不利になる。急いで選挙をしたいのだが、雨季を避けなければならない。

木曜日。今日は休日だ。ではまた明日。

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海野 恵一
1948年1月14日生

学歴:東京大学経済学部卒業

スウィングバイ株式会社
代表取締役社長

アクセンチュア株式会社代表取締役(2001-2002)
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