环保女斗士：马莉娜．席尔瓦

OCCASIONALLY, a politician comes along who seems too principled to be thrown into an electoral dogfight in a giant democracy. Marina Silva, the candidate of the small Green Party in Brazil’s presidential election in October, is such a candidate. What she lacks in party machinery she is trying to make up with ethical force. Her immediate aim is to make it to the run-off ballot. This will not be easy: a recent poll gave her only 10% of the vote. But that is not bad given that many Brazilians, like voters elsewhere, do not count saving the planet as one of their priorities.

在大型民主国家，有时候，一位看似太有原则的政治人物反而很难在选举混战中顺利出线。今年十月巴西总统大选，绿党推派的候选人Marina Silva就是这样一位候选人。她欠缺强大的政党机器支持，但试图运用道德力量为自己造势。她现阶段的目标是要挤进第二回合投票。这可不容易︰最近一次民调显示，她仅囊括一成选票。但是，对于从来不视拯救地球为优先议题之一的巴西选民来说，正如其他国家选民一样，情况还不算太糟。

Ms Silva was born in Acre, in Amazonia. Her father, a migrant from the poor north-east, found work there as a rubber tapper. It was a hazardous place to grow up: of Ms Silva’s 11 brothers and sisters, only eight survived beyond infancy. Malaria, hepatitis and other forest diseases bequeathed health problems to the adult Ms Silva, including a collection of allergies to things from seafood to air-conditioning.

Marina Silva出生在亚马孙河流域的阿克拉州，父亲来自贫困的东北部，在这里找到一份橡胶工人的工作。这里对于儿童成长是一个危险地方︰Marina Silva有十一个兄弟姐妹，只有八个平安度过婴儿期存活下来。疟疾、肝炎和其他丛林疾病带给成年的Marina Silva不少健康问题，包括对于海鲜食品和冷气空调等各种过敏。

She worked as a maid to put herself through university in Acre (later she earned a postgraduate degree too). She campaigned with Chico Mendes, an environmental organiser from Acre who was murdered by a landowner in 1988. She was a founding member of the Workers’ Party, along with Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a trade unionist of similarly modest origins. When he became president in 2003 he made Ms Silva, who had entered politics as a state deputy and federal senator, his environment minister.

Marina Silva在少女时期原以家庭女佣谋生，后来自己进修考上阿克拉州的一所大学（很多年后，她也拿到硕士学位）。她加入了Chico Mendes的社运组织，Chico Mendes是阿克拉州的环保人士，1988年遭一名地主杀害。Marina Silva也是工党创党党员之一，追随Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva，两人都是出身卑微的工会成员。Lula da Silva在2003年就任总统后，延揽Marina Silva担任环境部长，在此之前，他已经以州议员和联邦参议员身分踏入政坛。

In government she lost arguments, some better-founded than others, over the introduction of genetically modified soya, the paving of the BR-163 road through the Amazon and nuclear power. She was accused of filling her ministry with greens (to which she pleads guilty) and fellow evangelical Protestants (a charge she rejects). In 2008 she resigned shortly after another minister was handed responsibility for reforming the law on land tenure in the Amazon. She refused to criticise Lula publicly.

她在政府任职丧失了原有环保主张，引进基因改造黄豆、铺设BR-163联邦公路横跨亚马孙河，并兴建核能发电厂，有些看似无可厚非。Marina Silva被控大量引荐环保人士进入环境部上班（她坦承有错），并晋任福音派新教徒（她严词否认）。2008年，当另一位部长被交付修法改善亚马逊地区的土地占有问题后不久，Marina Silva立即辞职走人，拒绝公开批评Lula da Silva。更多信息请访问：http://www.24en.com/

Ms Silva’s main campaign theme is that Brazil has a moral responsibility to become a high-tech, low-carbon economy as an example to other developing countries. In a tacit critique of Lula’s fondness for a big state and for Fidel Castro, she also says that Brazil must lower its tax burden and not cuddle up to tyrants. Guilherme Leal, who owns Natura, a big cosmetics firm, and is one of Brazil’s richest men, is considering a request to be her running mate. She still has a lot of ground to make up. “My grandfather told me that the animal with the shortest legs has to run the farthest,” she says, before rushing off to her next campaign appointment.

Marina Silva的竞选主轴是，巴西具有成为高科技、低碳经济体的道德责任，要作为其他开发中国家的表率。对于Lula da Silva钟情于成为区域强权，并与古巴领导人Fidel Castro交好，Marina Silva不表示意见；但她却也表示，巴西必须降低税负，而且不要与暴君接近。大型化妆品公司Natura总裁Guilherme Leal，巴西最富有的企业家之一，正在考虑成为她的竞选伙伴。她还有很多地方需要补强。在奔往下一场竞选造势场合之前，她表示「阿公曾告诉我，腿愈短的动物必须跑得愈快」。