美国有线新闻 CNN 意大利修宪公投失败 总理宣布辞职

 

Big vote yesterday of the European country of Italy. Significant changes have been proposed to the country's constitution which dates back to 1948, and voters were given the choice to accept or reject them. Italy's parliament has two chambers², the Senate and the Chamber¹ of Deputies. Both houses have to approve a bill before it can become law.

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi wants to reduce the number of people serving in the Senate. This would weaken that chamber. And Prime Minister Renzi says it would make it easier and faster to pass laws.

But critics say this could get rid of an important check on the government's power and give too much power to the prime minister instead.

What further raised the stakes in this referendum, this vote is that Mr. Renzi says he'll step down as prime minister if Italians don't vote to reduce the size of the Senate.

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's all about cutting down the powers and the size of the Italian senate, basically making it a much smaller body. Instead of 315 members, it will go down to 100 and they will be appointed and they'll have very little in the way of decision-making power. The Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi says this is a good way to stream-line a very cumbersome³ political process but his critics say that this really poses the danger of giving dictatorial⁴ powers or rather too much power to whoever is in the position of prime minister.

Many people harking back to the days of Mussolini, who was one of the reasons why the cumbersome political system exists here in the first place.

The problem is, of course, Matteo Renzi has said that if Italians reject these constitutional changes, he will resign.

So, many of his opponents have turned this simply into a popular contest for Matteo Renzi. He's the 41-year-old prime minister who has been in power for the last two and a half years. He came to power promising⁵ to get the Italian economy, which hasn't really moved since the late 1990s, moving again. It has moved from negative growth to very anemic progress or rather positive growth. But for many Italians, that's simply not enough.

1 chamber   

n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所

参考例句：

• For many,the dentist's surgery remains a torture chamber.对许多人来说，牙医的治疗室一直是间受刑室。
• The chamber was ablaze with light.会议厅里灯火辉煌。

2 chambers   

n.房间( chamber的名词复数 )；（议会的）议院；卧室；会议厅

参考例句：

• The body will be removed into one of the cold storage chambers. 尸体将被移到一个冷冻间里。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Mr Chambers's readable book concentrates on the middle passage: the time Ransome spent in Russia. Chambers先生的这本值得一看的书重点在中间：Ransome在俄国的那几年。 来自互联网

3 cumbersome   

adj.笨重的，不便携带的

参考例句：

• Although the machine looks cumbersome,it is actually easy to use.尽管这台机器看上去很笨重，操作起来却很容易。
• The furniture is too cumbersome to move.家具太笨，搬起来很不方便。

4 dictatorial   

adj. 独裁的，专断的

参考例句：

• Her father is very dictatorial.她父亲很专横。
• For years the nation had been under the heel of a dictatorial regime.多年来这个国家一直在独裁政权的铁蹄下。

5 promising   

adj.有希望的，有前途的

参考例句：

• The results of the experiments are very promising.实验的结果充满了希望。
• We're trying to bring along one or two promising young swimmers.我们正设法培养出一两名有前途的年轻游泳选手。