Robert Van Voren: Dutch referendum blessing for Putin’s “useful idiots”
Preparations are made at the Binnenhof at The Hague, the Netherlands, on September 15, 2015, on Prinsjesdag (Prince's Day), the traditional opening of the Dutch parliamentary year.
For the past twenty-five years I have been working in Ukraine, mainly in the field of mental health care reform and the defense of human rights. During the same twenty-five years, as a Dutch citizen, I voted for the political party D’66, a democratic-liberal party that after many years of lobbying managed to introduce the referendum concept into Dutch political life as a means to decrease the gap between the people and political structures. How paradoxical it is, that it is this very referendum tool that has become a threat to the democracy we have enjoyed since World War Two.
