LATIN AMERICA:
Direct Democracy - Progress and Pitfalls
Marcela Valente

BUENOS AIRES,  (IPS) - Constitutional mechanisms of direct democracy became widespread in Latin America in the 1990s. But sometimes they are used cynically, sporadically and perversely, experts say.

Public consultations, referendums, citizens' initiatives, and recall votes are instruments of participative democracy already available to people in most Latin American countries.

But have these instruments fulfilled the expectations of greater participation? The answer is complex because of the enormous diversity of actual experiences, researchers say.

Academics from Latin America, Canada, Italy, Spain and Switzerland took part in the Mar. 14-15 International Conference on Direct Democracy in Latin America, held in Buenos Aires, to assess the ways in which instruments of direct democracy have been used.

The conference was convened by the intergovernmental International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), based in Sweden, as part of the preparations for the first World Conference on Direct Democracy, to be held in Lucerne, Switzerland in May 2008.

Similar conferences have also been held recently in Africa and Asia.

The University of Geneva, the Argentine San Martín National University (UNSAM) and the Argentine Undersecretariat for Public Administration also participated in the organisation of the Latin American conference.

Virginia Beramendi, a Uruguayan who works for IDEA as a project manager, told IPS that the aim of the conference "is not to promote these particular mechanisms, but to study how they have worked in practice and learn lessons about their design in different contexts."

In recent years, there have been referendums on disarmament (Brazil), the use of natural resources (Bolivia), privatisation (Uruguay), and whether a president should remain in office (Venezuela).

Regional experience -- or lack thereof -- with mechanisms of direct democracy are evidence of a reality which is in general very different to that of Switzerland, where these mechanisms have a tradition of over a century of efficient practice, Swiss ambassador to Argentina Daniel von Muralt said at the opening of the conference.

IDEA's director for Latin America and the Caribbean Daniel Zovatto said that in countries without solid institutions, instruments of direct democracy "lend themselves to perverse ends that differ greatly from the original good intentions."

This could erode people's willingness to participate in these kinds of mechanisms, he said.

In Latin America, since the rule of military dictatorships in many of the region's countries in the 1970s and early 1980s, the transition to democracy has occurred in two stages, said Zovatto, who has a degree in political science and a doctorate in international law.

In the 1980s there was a move towards democracy, although in economic terms it was a "lost decade". And in the 1990s there was a period of crisis and disillusionment with politics in representative democracies, he said.

An attempt was made to overcome this credibility crisis by means of reforms that opened the way to mechanisms of direct participation, in order to maintain the stability of political systems. These had widely varying results, Zovatto said.

"In Latin America, a given mechanism may promote participation, or it may result in the delegation of functions to the executive branch," said UNSAM's Alicia Lissidini, a Uruguayan with a doctorate in social sciences.

A paper presented at the conference by Lissidini, titled "Direct Democracy in Latin America: Between Participation and Delegation", said that participatory mechanisms – which were already in place in Colombia, Chile and Uruguay -- have become widespread throughout the region in the last 15 years, but have emerged in very different political contexts.

"Only in Bolivia were these mechanisms incorporated because society demanded them," she said, referring to the popular unrest that led to the 2004 referendum on the future of the country's natural gas reserves.

In an interview with IPS, Lissidini said that these mechanisms "are alive, and will remain as important as they became in the 1990s," for both positive and negative reasons.

Among the positive reasons she emphasised the "greater autonomy of social organisations," and among the negative ones she mentioned "the rejection of political parties" as mediators and representatives of people's concerns.

"These instruments are useful for putting controversial matters on the public agenda, such as the decriminalisation of abortion, and to force the political élites to debate issues that they might otherwise prefer not to address," Lissidini said.

But she pointed out that "there is a risk that these mechanisms may be used by the executive branch," which undermines the purpose of direct democracy methods. This has occurred in at least seven countries, she said.

In her presentation, Lissidini said that referendums were introduced in Argentina and Peru in the mid-1990s when constitutional reforms to allow presidential reelection were being proposed. These cases gave rise to "very little social mobilisation," she said.

Perhaps because of this initial flaw, participative mechanisms remain relatively unknown in both these countries and are used only sporadically at the national level said Emilio Laferriere, of the University of Buenos Aires.

In Chile and Paraguay, paradoxically, these instruments designed to expand democracy were in fact used by the dictatorships.

But the plebiscite called in 1988 by the late then dictator Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990), which he lost, marked the beginning of the end of his 17-year regime.

The fact that the authoritarian regime made the plebiscite its tool might explain why direct democracy mechanisms have not been used in Chile since 1990, when democracy was restored, said Chilean Marcel Gonnet Wainmayer in a paper presented at the conference.

Uruguay has the greatest experience in direct democracy mechanisms. According to a paper presented by David Altman of Chile's Catholic University, this small South American country first introduced such instruments in 1934, and has been refining and extending them ever since.

Lissidini made special reference to the 1989 plebiscite in Uruguay, which put an end to trials against military personnel accused of violating human rights during the 1973-1985 dictatorship. In her view, that event marked the start of a phase in which referendums are used to dispute or contest government policies, for example to prevent privatisations or to prevent pensions being reduced.

"Until the 1990s, plebiscites in Uruguay were used by political parties to settle differences, including internal differences. But in recent years that has changed, and now politicians tend to support referendums only after the issue has been raised by social movements," she said.

In Venezuela, referendums were introduced after President Hugo Chávez took office in 1999.

In Lissidini's view, the new constitution adopted that year, which introduced direct democracy mechanisms, is perhaps the most ambitious of any in the region.

Venezuela's constitution is the only one that allows voters to recall the president, and one of only a few that include the obligation to submit any constitutional amendment or reform to the popular vote. It is also the least restrictive in terms of the number of votes required to introduce changes.

However, this reform, intended to widen participation, was implemented in a context which has allowed presidential powers to be enhanced, to the detriment of other branches of government, such as the legislative branch, Lissidini warned.

The president now has the power to call a referendum to annul even a law that is in force.