Word: referendum
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...American jail cell remains the drug bosses' darkest nightmare, the Colombian Supreme Court last October upheld Barco's use of executive powers to extradite suspects wanted in the U.S. But last week the Colombian House of Representatives voted to put the question of extradition on a nationwide referendum early next year. In so doing, the legislators effectively washed their hands of the issue and admitted to their constituents that they do not have the gumption to make tough decisions for the country's overall good if it means endangering their own lives...
Civic Forum, the opposition group led by Havel, proposed him for president Sunday, but Communist members of Parliament proposed a referendum of citizens to choose a president...
...referendum, 35.6% of voters backed a proposal to abolish the military. The results shocked the country's political and military establishment. Few expected the measure to garner more than 25% of the tally. President Jean- Pascal Delamuraz once called the initiative "an idiocy as big as the Matterhorn." Swiss voters, though, viewed the issue with great seriousness: 68.6% of them turned out, more than have shown up for any other of the < country's incessant referendums in the past 15 years. The army will remain, but it has been sharply shaken and irrevocably affected...
Thus, considerably more was at stake in the referendum than the $3 billion spent each year by the military. One survey by the Lausanne-based research institute MIS showed that only 15% of voters really wanted to get rid of the army. The rest wanted the army reformed and defense spending trimmed, a clear- cut result of lessening East-West tensions...
Even before the referendum, the army began a campaign of self- rehabilitation. It announced that some reforms were being considered, including, at last, alternative service for conscientious objectors and an end to reserve service at 42. After the voting, General Heinz Hasler, who will take command of the military on Jan. 1, averred that the army had much to do: "Everything must be done to restore the people's conviction that military defense is needed" -- a clear acknowledgment that even the leadership of a citizens' army cannot long ignore great changes in the citizenry...