The referendum is an act of direct expression of the will of the people

The referendum is one of the symbols of a modern democratic society, where the government formally belongs to the people. It is an act of direct expression of the will of the people on important issues in various spheres. In fact, the leadership of the country directly refers to citizens.

A referendum is an official procedure, the procedure for conducting it is regulated by constitutional and legislative acts, and its results have legal force. However, despite this, the results of referendums are often ignored by state authorities.

There are the following kinds of referendums (depending on the grounds for holding).

1. On the basis of scale, they are divided into national (that is, conducted on the territory of the whole country), regional (in the territory of one or several entities) and local (conducted at the local municipality level).

2. The content is divided into constitutional (that is, on the adoption of a new Constitution or amendments to the old one), legislative (adoption of draft new laws) and consultative (on the direction of the activities of bodies of higher, regional or local government).

3. By the degree of mandatory conduct: mandatory (which are regulated by the Constitution of the country), or optional (conducted on the initiative of the ruling bodies or the people).

4. In terms of importance: decisive (when the fate of a bill depends on the outcome of a popular vote), and consultative (which in its essence are large-scale population polls and not legally valid).

5. By the time: pre-parliamentary (the opinion of the people on the particular issue is clarified before the adoption of the relevant law), post-parliamentary (after the adoption of the law) and extra-parliamentary (when the fate of a project is decided directly by popular vote).

The referendum is an event that has been practiced since quite a long time. Even in ancient Rome, a concept was born as a plebiscite (that is, a plebeian vote on various issues). First, the Senate, consisting of patricians, ignored the results of the plebiscite, however, with the adoption of relevant laws (in the 5th and 4th centuries BC), this procedure received official state status and became synonymous with the word "law".

In modern history, the conduct of nationwide referendums is also not uncommon. On April 25, 1993, the first referendum of the Russian Federation was held, where issues related to the procedure for electing the President and the Council of People's Deputies, as well as issues of the social policy that was being held at that time were discussed. A little later (in this very year), the Constitution of the new state was adopted at the referendum. In the history of the USSR, there were no surveys of the population as such, all issues were resolved at the highest party level in a narrow circle of proxies. The first and last Soviet referendum was an event that took place on March 17, 1991 ("On the issue of preserving the renewed union of friendly republics"), where more than half of the population expressed "FOR", but despite this, the huge country disappeared from geographical maps.