埃及政治僵局或将危及经济前景

The extended standoff between President Mohammed Morsi and secular-leaning protesters is heaping new uncertainty on Egypt's fragile economy and raising alarm from big international donors, just as businessmen and investors were seeing glimmers of hope.

就在商人和投资者看到希望之光的时候，埃及总统穆尔西(Mohammed Morsi)与世俗倾向的示威者长时间僵持，给该国经济带来新的不确定性，并引起重要国际援助者的警惕。

Both sides raised the stakes Wednesday in a dispute sparked last week when the president issued a decree granting him almost absolute power over Egypt's nascent government.

周三，双方都增加了筹码。当前这轮争端的起因，是穆尔西上周发布政令，让自己对埃及诞生未久的政府几乎拥有绝对的权力。

Mr. Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood and like-minded Islamist politicians called for protests on Saturday in Cairo's Tahrir Square, a departure from their decision to cancel a march earlier this week to keep from stoking violence. Anti-Morsi protesters already occupy Tahrir by the thousands, and liberal forces opposed to the president have scheduled a second march this week to fall on Friday.

穆尔西所在的穆斯林兄弟会(Muslim Brotherhood)和相似倾向的伊斯兰派政界人士呼吁人们周六到开罗解放广场(Tahrir Square)示威，一反他们之前取消本周早些时候一场游行以防引发暴力的决定。解放广场已被数千示威者占领，反对穆尔西的自由派势力计划在本周五举行另外一场游行。

Egypt's two highest appeals courts joined a labor strike meant to protest Mr. Morsi's expanded political power, Egypt's state news agency reported. Some senior judges had met Monday with Mr. Morsi to seek clarification on the decree that was meant to prevent judges from disbanding an Islamist-dominated constitutional drafting committee. The judges' fresh opposition amounts to a slap in the face for the embattled president.

据埃及官方通讯社报道，两家最高上诉法院加入抗议穆尔西扩权的罢工运动。一些资深法官曾于周一会晤穆尔西，要求他澄清那条政令。政令的目的是防止法官解散以伊斯兰派为主的宪法起草委员会。法官们的新一轮反对行动等于是打了被四面攻击的穆尔西一记耳光。

Meanwhile, the head of the assembly tasked with drafting the constitution called on members to vote on the completed constitution by Thursday─racing to finish the document before the weekend, when the Supreme Court hears the case on the assembly's constitutionality. Judge Hossam El Gheriany, the assembly's leader, told members that accelerating the constitution's drafting was the smoothest way to resolve the messy conflict dividing the nation.

与此同时，制宪委员会主席召集委员表决已经写就的宪法，时间不晚于周四，从而赶在最高法院周末就制宪委员会是否合宪的案件进行听证之前完成宪法起草。委员会主席吉拉尼(Hossam El Gheriany)法官对委员们说，要化解导致国家分裂的混乱冲突，加快宪法的起草是最顺利的办法。

He asked liberal assembly members─more than 20 of whom had left the 100-member assembly to protest its domination by Islamists─to return to vote on a charter that has been in the works for about five months. The president will choose when to put the document to a public referendum.

100人制宪委员会当中，已经有20多名自由派委员退出，以抗议伊斯兰派主导整个委员会的局面。吉拉尼要求自由派委员返回，对历时约五个月写成的宪法投票。穆尔西将选择何时将宪法文本付诸全民公投。

'If you are upset by [Morsi's] decree, nothing will stop it except a new constitution issued immediately,' he said.

吉拉尼说，如果你对穆尔西的政令不满，除了马上发布新宪法，什么都阻挡不了它。

Egypt's impasse has all but snuffed out what had been a light at the end of its dark economic tunnel, casting doubt on recent deals for international aid, foreign investment and a crucial $4.8 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund.

埃及的僵局几乎已将之前的经济曙光消灭殆尽，让人对最近敲定的一些协议的前景产生怀疑，这当中有国际援助协议、外商投资协议和国际货币基金组织(International Monetary Fund，简称IMF)一笔48亿美元的至关重要的贷款。

Any economic shift could still scuttle last week's memorandum of understanding with the IMF, a fund spokeswoman warned Tuesday. 'Consideration of the agreement by the IMF Executive Board will require that there is no major change in the economic outlook and implementation plans,' said spokeswoman Wafa Amr.

IMF的一名发言人周二提醒，如果经济前景出现变化，埃及上周同IMF达成的谅解备忘录仍有可能流产。发言人阿姆鲁(Wafa Amr)说，只有在经济前景和执行计划不发生重大变化的前提下，IMF执行委员会才会对这份备忘录进行审议。

From the perspective of international investors, Mr. Morsi appeared to be saying all the right things since his inauguration at the end of June. He traveled the world with a team of businessmen to attract investment, securing billions in assistance from Arab, European and the U.S. governments. But following his decree a week ago, and the furious response from many Egyptians, Egypt's EGX30 stock index lost 11.4%, including a 4.6% drop on Wednesday.

在国际投资者看来，穆尔西6月底就职以来没出过什么差错。他带着一众商界人士周游世界吸引投资，从阿拉伯、欧洲和美国政府获得了数十亿美元援助的承诺。但一周前他发布扩权法令后，引发了很多埃及人的强烈不满，埃及股指应声跌了11.4%，其中仅周三就跌了4.6%。

'All new investments in Egypt are frozen until the political and security situation stabilizes,' said Hussein Sabbour, chairman of the Egyptian Businessmen Association, a group that represents the country's top 1,000 industrialists and businessmen. 'There is a sense that the situation is out of control all over the country.'

埃及企业家协会(Egyptian Businessmen Association)会长萨布尔(Hussein Sabbour)说，在政治和安全局势稳定之前，埃及全部新投资都冻结了。人们感觉埃及各地局面都失去了控制。该组织代表埃及最大的1,000位实业家和商界人士。

At least three people have been killed and hundreds wounded in violence since the weekend. Activists remained camped out in central Cairo's Tahrir Square on Wednesday, one day after tens of thousands of Mr. Morsi's opponents rallied to protest Mr. Morsi's decree.

从上周末到现在，至少有三人在暴乱中死亡，数百人受伤。周三，活动人士仍然在开罗市中心的解放广场上搭帐篷过夜，此前一天，数万名反对者为抗议穆尔西的法令举行了集会。

The street-level restlessness may further cow policy makers from making the tough economic decisions that stand to save Egypt's economy.

街头发生的动乱可能会让决策者更加紧张，使其不敢制定可能挽救埃及经济的严厉的经济措施。

Egypt needs to withdraw fuel subsidies that are seen as wasteful and misdirected, and already take up more than one-fourth of the country's budget outlay. But politicians worry the country's newly defiant population will resist even a modest price increase on commodities.

埃及需要取消燃料补贴，这些补贴被认为毫无益处，并且已经占用了埃及超过四分之一的预算。但是一些政治人物担心，即使是非常微弱的大宗商品价格上涨也会遭到愤怒的埃及民众抵制。

Mr. Morsi's decree may also undermine a 5 billion ($6.3 billion) support package that Egypt signed with the European Union this month, a high-level European official said in an interview published Monday. 'If Morsi chooses the road of dictatorship, then the funds pumped into the Egyptian market will be less,' Elmar Brok, the head of the EU Parliament's foreign affairs committee, told a German newspaper.

欧洲一名高级官员在周一发表的一篇采访中说，穆尔西的法令可能还会破坏埃及本月与欧盟签订的一个规模50亿欧元（63亿美元）的援助计划。欧洲议会(European Parliament)外交事务委员会负责人布鲁克(Elmar Brok)在接受一家德国报纸的采访时说，如果穆尔西选择独裁之路，注入埃及市场的资金将会减少。

Egypt is in desperate need of such assistance. The fraught transition to democracy that followed Mr. Mubarak's downfall early last year frightened off foreign investors and tourists, pushing the country to the brink of a balance of payments crisis and putting considerable downward pressure on the Egyptian pound.

埃及现在急需这样的援助。去年年初穆巴拉克倒台之后，埃及向民主过渡的进程出现很多问题，吓跑了外国投资者和游客，把埃及推向了国际收支危机的边缘，也使埃及货币承受了巨大的贬值压力。

To keep the pound's value from plummeting, the country's Central Bank has bled through nearly two-thirds of the $36 billion in foreign currency reserves it held in December 2010.

为了防止埃及镑大幅贬值，2010年12月，埃及央行将其360亿美元的外汇储备释放了将近三分之二。

The pound was trading at about 6.11 to the dollar on Wednesday, near to its eight-year low. The country's foreign-currency reserves stood at $15.484 billion at the end of October─a hair above the three months of import cover the IMF recommends that countries maintain.

周三，美元兑埃及镑的汇率为6.11，接近八年来的最低点。10月末，埃及的外汇储备为154.84亿美元，略高于IMF建议的满足三个月进口需求的外汇储备规模。

While many observers expect foreign governments and international financial institutions such as the IMF to eventually pony up the assistance Egypt desperately needs, the chorus of concern doesn't bode well for foreign investment that could stand to reverse Egypt's downward plunge.

尽管许多观察人士预计外国政府和IMF这样的国际金融机构最终会向埃及提供其急需的援助，然而外界的担忧对于外国投资者来说可不是个好兆头，这些外国投资本来可以逆转埃及经济日益恶化的趋势。

'The fact that there's even a possibility that the IMF might hold the funding might in turn restrict capital flows from businesses and foreign investors into Egypt,' said William Jackson, an emerging markets economist at Capital Economics, a London-based research consultancy. 'The government's in quite a difficult position.'

总部在伦敦的研究咨询公司凯投宏观(Capital Economics)的新兴市场经济学家杰克森(William Jackson)说，IMF可能不会提供资金的事实可能会限制企业和外国投资者向埃及投入资本。他说，埃及政府正处在一个相当艰难的位置。