PBS高端访谈:意大利公投修改宪法

 　　ALISON STEWART, PBS NEWSHOUR WEEKEND ANCHOR: Italians vote tomorrow in a referendum to change their post- World War II constitution in the hopes of alleviating¹ the gridlock that plagues the country's central government. Italy's prime minister for most of the past three years, Matteo Renzi, says he'll resign if the referendum fails.

　　"NewsHour Weekend" special correspondent Christopher Livesay joins me from Rome to discuss the referendum and its potential impact on the European Union.

　　Christopher, what are the driving forces behind "yes" on the referendum, let's change the way the government works? And what's the driving forces behind "no," let's not do that?

　　CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY, NEWSHOUR WEEKEND SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, so, the idea behind voting yes is quite simple. It's to change the constitution, to ultimately streamline² the political system here. Italy is notoriously difficult to govern. It's had 63 governments in the last 70 years.

　　One of the main reasons for that is, if you want to pass a law, it tends to get stuck between both a senate and a house. And the idea would be to shrink the senate so you make the house a little more powerful, and you can get a law through that way and generate more stability in the Italian government. And with more governmental stability, the idea is you would have more economic stability as well.

　　The people voting "no" on this are upset with the powers this would give to the prime minister. The constitution in Italy, as you mentioned, came after World War II. You have to think about who was in charge in Italy during World War II and before World War II. That was none other than the dictator Benito Mussolini.

　　So, the constitution was written in a way to keep the prime minister from becoming too powerful, but in the process, it's generated a lot of gridlock. There's still a large portion of the Italian electorate³ that's still undecided. It's about 30 percent of Italians still don't know two which way they're going to vote on this thing.

　　意大利公投修改宪法

　　ALISON STEWART: One of the things that's interesting about this election is the domino effect it could have, if Renzi does, indeed, resign, and then it opens it up for others to take place, take his place. Obviously, the Five Star Movement is the one we're hearing a lot about.

　　Tell us a little bit about the Five Star Movement, who supports it, and who its leader is.

　　CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY: It's a catch-all party. They tend to oppose anything that the government proposes, but one thing that we can say about them is that they're populist, they're anti-establishment, and they're anti-euro.

　　The leader of this party is a charismatic stand-up comic by the name of Beppe Grillo. He is sort of gleefully vulgar and has a way of just connecting with people, unlike any other politician on the scene right now. That might ring a bell with viewers in the United States.

　　Beppe Grillo has proposed giving Italians a referendum on their membership to the euro zone, and that could send some serious economic shockwaves all across the common currency area.

　　ALISON STEWART: Christopher Livesay from Italy — thank you so much.

　　CHRISTOPHER LIVESAY: Thanks for having me.

1 alleviating   

减轻，缓解，缓和( alleviate的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• If it's alleviating pain,who knows what else it's doing? 如果它减轻了疼痛，天知道还影响什么？
• Measuring poverty is not the same as alleviating it, of course. 当然，衡量贫困和减轻贫困是截然不同的。

2 streamline   

vt.使成流线型；使简化；使现代化

参考例句：

• We must streamline our methods.我们必须简化方法。
• Any liquid or gas passing it will have streamline flow.任何通过它的液体或气体将呈流线型的流动。

3 electorate   

n.全体选民；选区

参考例句：

• The government was responsible to the electorate.政府对全体选民负责。
• He has the backing of almost a quarter of the electorate.他得到了几乎1/4选民的支持。