Até Mais, Lisbon

[Peter Korsten]

The Dong schreef:

> We should have referendums every week, like a lottery, but without any 
> balls on show ;)

The EU Constitution referendum was the first real nation-wide referendum 
in the Netherlands. It was not deemed a success.

But there have been referendums on a local level, usually with such a 
low turnout to invalidate the whole thing.

So the latest is mayor referendums. In an attempt to decrease the 
distance between politicians and voters, the latter are given influence 
in who becomes mayor. Because so far, the practice is that the mayor 
gets appointed by the Crown (i.e. the government), without influence by 
the electorate or even the local council (although they make the 
recommendation).

But instead of having them elected directly, the local council gets to 
choose two candidates, which then go head to head in a referendum. In 
Utrecht, there was the choice between a candidate of the Labour Party 
(PvdA) and a candidate of the Labour Party. In Eindhoven, exactly the 
same thing happened. Not surprisingly, these referendums were not a 
success either.

Meanwhile, the required change in the Dutch constitution has been 
rejected by the First Chamber of parliament (roughly comparable to the 
House of Lords in the UK), so no popularly elected mayor for now.

The party that I most agree with (or least disagree with) in the 
Netherlands supports referendums and all that, even though they support 
a district/constituency system, something that I'm not in favour of. Oh 
well, hopefully they'll pick up again at the next elections. So far, the 
signs are hopeful.

- Peter