Citizens of Uruguay have once more resorted to initiatives and referendums during the past two years. But for the first time the political right has turned to direct democracy in this South American country with a long and rich tradition of citizen lawmaking, reports Jorge Rebella from Montevideo.
Mechanisms of direct democracy were used for the first time in Uruguay when its second constitution was approved by a national referendum held in 1917. It established the right of popular initiatives on municipal matters if backed by the signatures of 25% of the voters registered in a provincial district. A constitutional reform passed in 1966 states that the citizenry may use initiatives and referendums at both national and provincial levels to annul or derogate laws. Moreover, the electorate must be consulted on any constitutional reform or amendment by means of the so-called "plebiscite", which is the last step of a long process that any initiative - be it raised in Congress or at a popular level - must complete.
Abortion, youth and environment
Recently popular initiatives to force the call for a referendum and two constitutional plebiscites were launched in 2012 and 2013. The novelty is that conservative sectors made up largely of centre-right Colorado and Nacional parties' supporters promoted two of these initiatives aimed at repealing the abortion legalization bill and lowering the age of minors' legal responsibility in the constitution. The other initiative, to ban open- pit iron mining, is still in a preliminary stage since its promoters - environmentalist organizations together with agricultural producers associations - must collect the required number of signatures in order for a constitutional plebiscite to take place.
Left Government
Most of the fifteen popular consultations (plebiscites and referendums) that took place in Uruguay in the past 30 years (after the military dictatorship ended in 1985) were called for as a result of initiatives launched and promoted by progressive social organizations and/or the leftist Frente Amplio party. But since the Frente Amplio party took office in 2005, leftist citizens have reduced their use of direct democracy mechanisms. At the same time, groups linked to centre-right parties, which are now in the opposition, have started to promote initiatives and referendums.
Consequently, the use of such tools is no longer associated with the idea of a certain ideological leaning, but with the role political parties are playing in terms of being either government or opposition. "The development of Uruguay's political process shows the absence of an alleged elective affinity between the left and direct democracy mechanisms", said Rafael Pineiro, a political scientist who works at the Political Science Department of Universidad Católica del Uruguay.
Three initiatives
1) Abortion law. In June 2013 a voluntary inquiry was held to call for a referendum aimed at repealing the Law of Voluntary Interruption of Pregnancy passed in September 2012, which waives criminal penalties for abortion in the first 12 weeks of gestation. At that inquiry, opponents of the so-called "abortion law" were not able to secure 25% of the votes of the country's national electorate that were needed to endorse the initiative. After the 54,000 required signatures "equivalent to 2% of all registered electors" were handed in to the Electoral Court in March 2013 as the first step of the "fast track" initiative process, only 9% of the citizenry showed up to vote in favour of holding the proposed referendum. The low turnout surprised the promoters of the inquiry that belong mostly to Catholic organizations and to the National Party, since all the presidential candidates at that time, including the Frente Amplio's Tabara Vazquez, who stood against the majority of his party, supported the call.
2) Open pit mining. In December 2013 an environmental organization - Movimiento pro- Plebiscito Nacional Uruguay Libre de Minería Metalífera a Cielo Abierto (URUGUAY LIBRE) - started to collect signatures all over the country to call for a constitutional plebiscite aimed at banning open-pit metal mining in Uruguay. This popular initiative, which is also supported by Federación Rural, a ranchers' and farmers' association, has been launched due to the fact that India's Zamin Ferrous, through its local subsidiary Minera Aratirà, aims to develop a major iron ore open-pit mining, processing and exporting facility in east-central Uruguay. The environmentalists' goal is to collect at least 265,000 signatures - equivalent to one tenth of all registered voters required by the constitution - in order that the initiative may be the subject of a constitutional plebiscite. Although some 30,000 citizens have already signed the proposal, the promoters of this initiative may run out of time "the deadline is April 30, 2014" to reach their target of forcing a plebiscite to be held simultaneously with the national elections this October. Most likely, the signature collecting stage will take environmentalists more time, because they lack experience and human resources to fulfil this task. Although they count only with the support of all National Party leaders, whose strongholds are in rural districts, and of some Colorado Party factions, the ruling Frente Amplio administration and most unions of Pit/Cnt, the country's single labour federation, are against the initiative.
3) Minors' legal responsibility. On account of the rising wave of robberies and murders committed by adolescents, an initiative duly signed by 25% of all citizens was submitted to the Electoral Court in September 2012 in order to amend the constitution. It aims to lower the age of legal responsibility to 16 years from the current 18 years. The citizenry will decide in a constitutional plebiscite to be held simultaneously with the national elections in October 2014. This plebiscite emerges as one of the main issues of the election campaign this year. The initiative to lower the age of criminal responsibility was driven by the centre-right Colorado Party as a whole and the Herrerismo, one of the two largest sectors of the centre-right National Party. According to Equipos Mori, a polling firm, the proposal had the support of 64% of the country's population at the end of 2013. Even though the ruling Frente Amplio leaders have voiced their opposition to the constitutional amendment, leftist voters´ opinions are split: 53% favour the proposal and 47% reject it.
Key role for political parties
Political party support is a basic factor for the success of any popular initiative in Uruguay because of both Uruguayan political parties' important electoral machineries and Uruguayan voters' high commitment to their political leaders. However, the latest direct democracy developments show that the citizenry is becoming more independent from their own parties' stances on certain initiatives that deal with matters closely related to moral values.
Jorge Rebella is a journalist with the newspaper El Pais in Montevideo/Uruguay.
