意总理贝卢斯科尼将辞职 多名议员倒戈

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Tuesday he would resign after suffering a humiliating setback in parliament.(Agencies)

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Tuesday he would resign after suffering a humiliating setback in parliament that showed a party revolt had stripped him of a majority.

Berlusconi confirmed a statement from President Giorgio Napolitano that he would step down as soon as parliament passed urgent budget reforms demanded by European leaders after Italy was sucked into epicenter of the euro zone debt crisis.

The votes in both houses of parliament are likely this month and they would spell the end of a 17-year dominance of Italy by the flamboyant billionaire media magnate.

His failure to implement reforms fueled a party revolt and Berlusconi told his own Canale 5 television station that the only option was an early election. However, this could prolong the uncertainty that has sapped market confidence.

Berlusconi's government won a key budget vote after the opposition abstained on Tuesday but failed to secure a majority, obtaining only 308 votes in the 630-seat lower house, eight short of the 316 needed to be sure of passing legislation.

Pier Luigi Bersani, the leader of the main opposition Democratic Party, said Italy ran a real risk of losing access to financial markets after political uncertainty pushed yields on government bonds toward a red line of 7 percent.

"I ask you, Mr Prime Minister, with all my strength, to finally take account of the situation ... and resign," Bersani said immediately after the vote.

Italy, considered too big to bail out, has replaced Greece as the main cause for concern in the euro zone's sovereign debt crisis.

Berlusconi has been on the ropes for weeks, beset by a string of sex and legal scandals, political defeats and, most crucially, a loss of confidence on international markets.

But the 75-year-old, who has dominated Italian politics for most of the past two decades, had steadfastly refused to step down until Tuesday's vote and battled until the last to win over rebels in his PDL party.

The vote showed he had failed to stem the revolt and Berlusconi's bitterness was revealed by a photographer who caught the words "8 traitors" jotted down on his notepad in parliament after the result was read out by the speaker.

(Read by Nelly Min. Nelly Min is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)

意大利总理西尔维奥•贝卢斯科尼本周二宣布将会辞职。此前他在议会投票中遭遇耻辱性的惨败，同党议员倒戈使他失去了议会的大多数支持。

贝卢斯科尼证实了意大利总统乔治•纳波利塔诺的声明，称自己在议会通过欧盟领导人要求的紧急预算改革后将立刻辞职。意大利已成为欧债危机的“风暴眼”。

参众两院的投票有望于本月举行，这将意味着派头十足的亿万富翁兼媒体大亨贝卢斯科尼17年统治的终结。

贝卢斯科尼未能实施改革加剧了党内倒戈。他在接受自己旗下的第五频道电视台采访时说，唯一的选择是提前大选。但这会延长已经打压了市场信心的政坛不稳定期。

本周二，在反对党派拒绝投票的情况下，贝卢斯科尼政府赢得了关键性预算投票，但没能获得多数支持，在众议院的630个席位中仅获得308票赞成，比确保通过立法的316票要少8票。

主要反对党民主党领袖皮尔-路易-贝尔萨尼指出，政治不稳定性导致意大利国债收益率逼近7%的警戒线，意大利的金融市场面临崩溃。

贝尔萨尼在投票过后立即说道：“我尽全力呼吁你，总统先生，为大局考虑，辞职吧。”

意大利债务规模过于庞大，援助难以实现。目前，意大利已取代希腊，成为欧元区主权债务危机的新焦点。

贝卢斯科尼的地位几周来一直岌岌可危，不仅性丑闻和法律丑闻缠身，政坛受挫，而且最关键的是还失信于国际市场。

本周二投票前，75岁的老贝一直拒绝辞职，为了重获自民党几位倒戈议员的支持，他一直斗争到最后。在过去近20年里，贝卢斯科尼一直统治意大利政坛。

但投票结果显示，他没能阻止倒戈。有摄影师拍到议会表决宣布时，老贝在记事本上潦草地写下“八名叛徒”，透露出他的心痛。

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Vocabulary:

epicenter: 震中，中心

lower house: 众议院，下议院

on the ropes: 摇摇欲坠，岌岌可危

jot down: 草草记下