EURO-ECO 2008 Hanover 18 - 20 November 2008	Environmental and Engineering Aspects for sustainable living
	European Academy of Natural Sciences, Hanover European Scientific Society, Hanover University of Bremen, Bremen

Home

Abstracts EURO-ECO 2008

Contact

Disclaimer

In the period from 1990 till 2005 election committees registered about 20 initiative groups for preparing referenda in the subjects of the Federation and more than 100 groups on the federal level.

Most of the referenda initiated by citizens were connected with the problems of ecology protection which proves the importance of this kind of activity for developing the institution of self-government of the population.

The history of Russian referenda can be divided into two periods: before and after 1997. Referenda movement began with protests against constructing new atomic stations and enlarging the old ones. In 1989 – 1993 everybody being scared by Chernobyl catastrophe there was a surge of protest meetings in the Far East, Karelia, central Russia, south and north Urals. Protests took the shape of referenda practically all of which were held with the exception of those in Kostroma and the Komi republic. Most of the participants voted against the usage of atomic energy. The first ‘antiatomic’ referenda were characterized by the desire to eliminate new risks.

Beginning with 1997 the number of referenda was increasing, their themes becoming more diverse. More than half of the referenda initiated in 1997 – 2004 had chemical industry and utilization of atomic fuel as their target. At that time a referendum was still an act of protest aimed at preventing interference in nature. The difference of the referenda of that period from those of the previous years was that a smaller number of initiated referenda ended with voting. The rest were stopped by law and red tape. At least half of the referenda held in 1996 were attended by a small number of voters. Regional referenda were seldom held. This can be explained by two reasons: on the one hand, people’s support of referenda had decreased, on the other, the authorities had learnt to blockade protest movement.

Many referenda were stopped at intermediate stages. State authorities and businesses worked out new strategies of counteracting public initiatives. A range of measures used by the opponents is not very wide: they can refuse to register an initiative group or drag out a referendum at one of the stages (delay issuing subscription lists or approving the date and the theme of the referendum, etc.)

One of the ways of banning a referendum is the use of the amendment to the law of referenda according to which the competence of local and federal referenda is divided, i.e., a local referendum can solve only local problems, and regional referendum cannot solve problems of federal level. There are also strict restrictions as to holding referenda on the most crucial problems such as storing, shipping and destroying chemical weapons or storing and processing atomic fuel. The amendments to the law make it possible to question the validity of decisions of some referenda held earlier in court. There were cases when the election committee found that not all signatures were real. In some cases the number of voters was considered to be too small.

There exist a number of conditions that can help a referendum to be a success. Among them is the support by local authorities, businesses and local departments of political parties. It is very important that the citizens were aware of the urgency of the problem. A wide propaganda campaign, picketing, meetings, handing out leaflets and publishing articles in local press would help greatly. The initiative group should be well organized and its members should have experience in law suits.

Nowadays there exist two parallel processes. Public societies are learning to initiate referenda and to hold them and authorities are studying the mechanisms of dragging out these initiatives. Referenda are often used as instruments of pressure or popularizing steps in political games. But the importance of referenda is not equal its arithmetic results. There were cases when even a failure to organize a referendum had serious social results. There were cases when a referendum was initiated several times, the process lasted a year and the campaign became the content of social and political activities of parties and their active members. This complex arrangement involves informing people and discussing the urgent problem widely in mass media. As the result of these actions initiative groups consolidate, citizens learn to take part in political life and the political and social authority of those who participate in the discussion can change. There were also cases when the demands of the initiators were met before the referenda took place.

The results of such referenda were predictable because the citizens were ready to vote in support of the demands. Such was the case with the first referendum in the republic of Komi in 1989. The committee for protecting the Pechora initiated a republic referendum on the construction of new atomic stations. After Chernobyl catastrophe fear for atomic energy was so great in the people that the republic authorities made the decision without holding a referendum. They decreed a moratorium on the construction of atomic stations in the republic. A similar case took place in Moscow where Russian Greenpeace started collecting signatures to hold a referendum on saving greenery in Moscow. When the campaign was in full swing the city authorities offered Greenpeace to stop it in exchange for a new city law protecting the greenery. The offer was accepted and Moscow authorities kept their promise.

Thus the dynamics of holding ecological referenda in Russia in 1990-s and the beginning of 2000-s was unstable. The first half of 1990-s was the period of making laws on referenda. At that time referenda were actively used by the people of Russia .In the second half of 1990-s a reverse process started. The list of problems that could be solved at referenda became shorter, the procedure of initiating referenda became more complicated. That is why the process of forming an institution of ecological referenda can’t be considered completed. It will depend on the evolution of social and political systems in Russia.