The news about Latin American direct democracy just keeps getting worse. The plebiscite -- where the government or a president uses a referendum to add to his power -- has become a common method of doing business. Among its practitioners are elected leaders in Venezuela, Ecuador, and Honduras (where the attempt to hold a plebiscite led the military, congress and the courts to remove the president from office). Nicaragua's president has indicated he may hold a similar vote. Even the good news of direct democracy in the region -- Costa Rica's referendum on a free trade agreement -- was a plebiscitary (that is, top down, from the government) exercise.

Many of these plebiscitary presidents have been figures of the left. But now we have a figure of the right, Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe, attempting exactly the same thing -- a plebiscite to allow him to serve a third term. 

Such votes -- which are inaccurately called referenda (A referendum or initiative comes from the people, not from a president) -- are dangerous not merely to the countries. They are discrediting the democratic process in the region, and specifically direct democracy. Which is a shame. Uruguay remains one of the world's models of direct democracy -- California, for one place, would benefit by reforming its own process to resemble Uruguay's. Two votes are scheduled there in October: on a constitutional amendment that would permit Uruguayans living overseas to vote, and on a popular initiative reversing a 20-year-old amnesty law. Why Hugo Chavez wins big attention for his anti-democratic ideas, Uruguyan's successful democracy is ignored by its neighbors.

More on this subject next month from Seoul, South Korea, where I'll be attending the second global forum on direct democracy, led by the Korea Democracy Foundation and the amazing folks at the Initiative & Referendum Institute Europe.