A referendum is a form of direct democracy. The people themselves take decisions on state issues, without using legislators as intermediaries. Early democracies functioned in this way: the citizens of ancient Athens or medieval Novgorod engaged in what amounted to constant referenda. Over time, clumsy direct democracy was replaced by representative democracy - countries being governed not by the people themselves, but by their elected representatives.

All the same, referenda do play an important role in some countries. In Switzerland, all initiatives proposed by the government and non-governmental organizations are put to the vote four times a year. In recent years, the citizens of Switzerland have taken decisions on issues like lowering the age limit for military reservists, changing traffic regulations, banning artificial conception, and other non-crucial topics.

Having dealt with the law on public gatherings, the Duma has now turned its attention to referenda. Last week saw the new bill amending the law on referenda passed in its first reading. Organizing a referendum has never been easy - but if this bill is signed into law in its current form, then all citizens will have the right to initiate a referendum but only a few would be able to do so in practice.

Besides numerous restrictive amendments, the main obstacle to referenda under the old law was the requirement to collect 2 million signatures in favour of holding a referendum. But the most recent presidential election has shown that it is possible to collect not just 2 million, but as many as 4 million signatures in a relatively short period - if sufficient money is available. So it's become clear that a referendum not sanctioned by the authorities is dangerously feasible - and the problem cannot be resolved by simply increasing the required number of signatures.

Another "weak point" in the old version of the law is the ease with which a referendum can be initiated. Any hundred citizens who register as an initiative group with the electoral commission of any region can start collecting signatures. The decision has been made to eliminate this simplicity.

The new version of the law will require an initiative group to have regional subgroups with 100members each in at least half of Russia's regions. In other words, instead of a hundred members, 4,500 will now be required.

The time available for collecting signatures is being cut from three months to six weeks. Only members of initiative groups will be authorized to collect signatures - and only within their own regions.

Although this bill has been submitted to the Duma in the president's name, the person behind it is actually Central Electoral Commission (CEC) Chairman Alexander Veshnyakov: the CEC wrote the bill and Veshnyakov presented it to the Duma. After the first reading, Duma members were seen congratulating him, embracing him and clapping him on the shoulder as if he'd scored the winning goal in a football game.

Tested in battle

Both Veshnyakov and the United Russia party will have to work hard to get the bill passed in all three readings. On the day of its first reading, a protest rally was organized by the Communist Party (CPRF), YABLOKO, and the Advance Guard of Communist Youth.

The protest began outside the Duma building and ended in the Tverskoi District Court.

The demonstrators were not permitted to approach the main entrance of the Duma building; police officers lined up in advance around the exits of the nearby subway station. The only demonstrator who made it to the building was one old lady who had been there since very early in the morning, before the police arrived.

Glancing sadly at the other demonstrators, the old lady unfurled a sign decorated with a red bow and a threat against Putin. Meanwhile, the demonstrators were reassuring each other:

"We'll all move forward together. They won't be able to arrest all of us, comrades!"

The area between the underground pedestrian walkway and the corner of the Duma building filled up with the red flags of the CPRF and the green symbols of YABLOKO. The demonstrators formed an uneven wedge and moved forward towards the police lines. The police linked arms, but their cordon was broken.

Infuriated by their own helplessness (the presence of television cameras was obviously a restraining factor), the police started hauling demonstrators into a waiting bus. They seized Ilya Yashin, leader of the Moscow branch of YABLOKO's youth wing - but he was rescued by Kuvayev the communist, who grabbed Yashin's arm and pulled. The police seized the youth's other arm. They pulled him back and forth for some time in a tug-of-war, shouting threats at each other; the police eventually lost Yashin.

But Federal Guard Service personnel managed to seize Udaltsov from the Communist Youth. They made him stand with his head against the door, then led him away inside the Duma building.

A woman who tried to intervene was struck with a baton. Seeing this turn of events, Kuvayev appealed to the demonstrators in a fatherly tone: "Let's all bunch together and head for the subway, because the wolf pack is just waiting for an opportunity."

The "wolf pack" was indeed waiting. As YABLOKO members packed away their banners and signs, police arrested three more of them.Along with Udaltsov, they were taken to the Tverskoye police station, then to the Tverskoi District Court, where they were fined 500 roubles each.

The way it used to be

In the Soviet Union, a provision covering referenda was added to the Constitution as far back as 1936, but only one referendum ever took place: in 1991. The question put to the Soviet people read as follows: "Do you consider it essential to preserve the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics?" Voter turnout in that referendum was 79.58%, with 76.43% backing preservation of the USSR.

Although Soviet electoral legislation stated that a decision upheld by a referendum was final and binding across the territory of the USSR, it proved impossible to preserve the Soviet Union.

There has only been one referendum in post-Soviet Russia: the 1993 referendum with its four questions, on which citizens were asked to vote "Yes, Yes, No, Yes." Essentially, all the questions were about public confidence in Boris Yeltsin. It transpired that the people were more inclined to trust Yeltsin than to distrust him, so he ended up running the country for another seven years.

A new federal law on referenda was passed in October 1995. It has been adjusted several times, with amendment after amendment added, but no referenda have been held under this law.

Blackmail by democracy

Although Russia hasn't seen any referenda other than the "Yes, Yes, No, Yes" event, the threat of a direct expression of the will of the people has always persisted. This threat has even played a role in politics.

The person behind the most vivid example of blackmail-by-referendum was political consultant Marat Gelman. During Moscow's mayoral election campaign in 1999, he proposed holding a referendum on removing the statues erected around Moscow by sculptor Zurab Tsereteli and Mayor Yuri Luzhkov. The whole city was decorated with posters reading "This statue never used to be here" and "Down with the Tsar!" The latter quote was particularly ambiguous: everyone knew it didn't refer to the giant statue of Peter the Great, but to Luzkhov himself - the idea was to remove the mayor, not the statue.

At the time, Marat Gelman was working for the campaign team of Luzhkov's main rival, Sergei Kyrienko. So it might be said that the Union of Right-Wing Forces threatened Luzhkov with a referendum.

The Communists went still further: their referendum threat was aimed at the government, and even at Putin himself. They proposed a referendum on the reforms planned by Putin and Mikhail Kasyanov. The referendum was to include questions on land ownership, higher prices for housing, low incomes, and revising the results of privatization.

The Communist referendum threat appeared so real that the Duma, pressured by the president and the government, voted to amend the law on referenda - banning referenda during the year before parliamentary and presidential elections.

Curiously enough, not only the pro-government Duma factions voted in favour of that amendment. So did the democratic opposition. YABLOKO and the Union of Right-Wing Forces decided that holding such a referendum would boost the popularity of the Communists too much.

But this only postponed the threat of a Communist-initiated referendum; it arose again after Putin's re-election. Now the CEC has been made responsible for resolving the problem. This time, it is raising the barriers so high that not even the Communists are likely to succeed in scaling them.

See also:

Freedom of Assembly

Novaya Gazeta, June 10, 2004