1999 Popular Consultation
The 1999 Popular Consultation was held on May 16 in the period during the consolidation of peace in Guatemala. In it, the Congress of the Republic put to the vote a series of constitutional reforms that included: the recognition of the country's multiculturalism (which made official the indigenous languages in the educational and jurisdictional areas, besides the right to prior consultation), the recognition of customary law, a series of forms of regulation and control over the Legislative Body, the modernization of the army, as well as the transformation of the justice system, among others. The negative result of the Consultation blocked the approval of the reforms by the legislature. It is important to note there was a high margin of abstention (81%) in the urban areas. Contrastingly, there was a high participation rate in the departments with an indigenous majority.
Institutional design
Formalization: is the innovation embedded in the constitution or legislation, in an administrative act, or not formalized at all?
Frequency: how often does the innovation take place: only once, sporadically, or is it permanent or regular?
Mode of Selection of Participants: is the innovation open to all participants, access is restricted to some kind of condition, or both methods apply?
Type of participants: those who participate are individual citizens, civil society organizations, private stakeholders or a combination of those?
Decisiveness: does the innovation takes binding, non-binding or no decision at all?
Co-governance: is there involvement of the government in the process or not?
- Formalization
- embedded in the constitution/legislation
- Frequency
- single
- Mode of selection of participants
- open
- Type of participants
- citizens
- Decisiveness
- democratic innovation yields a binding decision
- Co-Governance
- yes
Means
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Ends
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