新聞人物 小池百合子
A suited woman, filmed from behind, walks down a corridor towards the light. Her heels ring on the floor. She passes two old men, wreathed in cigarette smoke. “Oppose us, will you?” they say. “Make a fool of the organisation?” The woman walks straight past. Four young men fall in behind her as she enters the light. Her face we never see, because we do not need to. The iconography, the silhouette and the story are unmistakable to every voter in Japan: Yuriko Koike.
Landing on unsuspecting prime minister Shinzo Abe like a slap from a sumo wrestler, the brief online video launched Ms Koike’s new Party of Hope, which will contest a general election called for October 22. Within 72 hours of her launch, Japan’s main opposition party collapsed, establishing Ms Koike as the main rival to Mr Abe’s ruling Liberal Democrats. The 65 year-old has still not said whether she will quit her job as Tokyo governor and stand for parliament. Nonetheless, she is within touching distance of becoming the first female prime minister of Japan.
這段簡短的在線視頻宣佈了小池百合子新的"希望之黨"(Party of Hope)的組建，後者將角逐10月22日提前舉行的大選；這段視頻就像相撲手的一巴掌一樣，打得毫不知情的現任首相安倍晉三(Shinzo Abe)暈頭轉向。在她宣佈組建新黨後的72小時內，日本的主要反對黨便瓦解了，確認小池爲安倍執政的自民黨(LDP)的主要對手。現年65歲的小池仍未表示是否將辭去東京都知事一職並參加衆議院大選。無論如何，她距離成爲日本首位女首相僅一步之遙。That would mark the spectacular culmination of a career spent running against a grey, male establishment using a mixture of charm, media-savvy, ruthless power politics and a gambler’s sense of timing. “What she has is decisiveness and guts,” says Takatane Kiuchi, a member of parliament who has defected to the Party of Hope.
對小池而言，這將標誌着其政治生涯的最高峯，她用自己的魅力、對媒體的諳熟、無情的權力政治和賭徒般準確的時機把握，對抗着由中老年男性主宰的建制派。“她擁有的是果斷和膽量。”已轉投希望之黨的國會議員木內孝胤(Takatane Kiuchi)說。
Success for Ms Koike would mark the triumph of a talented outsider over the old party machines, exemplified by third-generation politicians such as Mr Abe. But Ms Koike is a defector from Mr Abe’s LDP — quitting last year in order to challenge for the Tokyo governorship — so her campaign marks a step away from a two-party system based on distinct ideological visions. It is set to be a clash not of policy but of personalities.
小池的成功將標誌着一個有才華的局外人對抗舊式政黨機器（以安倍晉三等家族中第三代政治家爲典型）的勝利。但小池百合子是安倍自民黨的“叛離者”——去年以無黨籍身份參選東京都知事一職——因此，她的競選標誌着朝脫離基於不同意識形態的兩黨制邁出的一步。這場競爭註定不是一場政策之爭，而是個性之爭。That is ground where Ms Koike is well-placed to win. Born near Kobe in western Japan, she showed her independence young, moving to Cairo as a student to study Arabic. After a shortlived marriage to a Japanese man there, she moved back and became a presenter on World Business Satellite, a television business show that she made into a ratings hit.
這正是小池百合子更有優勢獲勝的地方。她出生在關西的神戶附近，年輕時就展現出了自己的獨立性，遠赴開羅學習阿拉伯語。在那裏與一名日本男子有過一段短暫的婚姻後，她又回到日本，成爲了財經新聞節目WBS(World Business Satellite)的主持人，並使該節目成爲收視王牌。“Koike’s time as a presenter on WBS is very important to understanding her perspective, her connections, current support base and the people with whom she now consults,” says one person who knew her at that time. “She understands business, particularly entrepreneurs, better than a lot of politicians.”
“小池在WBS擔當主持人的時期，對了解她的理念、人脈、目前的支持度基礎以及她現在的顧問非常重要。”一位那時就與她相識的人士表示，“她比很多政客都更瞭解商業，尤其是企業家。”Those years gave her a high public profile and formidable communication skills, which she brought to politics in 1992 as a candidate for the liberal Japan New party, an LDP breakaway that prefigures her Party of Hope. “She’d been a newscaster and had her own programme. Normally, even if someone like that were invited into politics they wouldn’t do it, or at least they’d hesitate,” says Hiroshi Nakada, who was Ms Koike’s secretary when she was first elected. “She just jumped straight in.”
那段經歷給她帶來了良好的公衆形象和強大的溝通能力，1992年，她帶着這些資本從政，代表從自民黨分裂出的日本新黨（她後來成立的希望之黨從這裏可見端倪）當選國會議員。“她當時是一名新聞主播，有自己的節目。通常情況下，像她這樣身份的人即便被邀請進入政界，也不會答應，或者至少會猶豫，”小池首次當選議員時的祕書中田宏(Hiroshi Nakada)說，“她想都不想就直接跳了進去。”
