National referendums are seldom used in Canada. The first two referendums saw voters in Quebec and the remainder of Canada take dramatically opposing stands, the third saw most of the voters take a stand dramatically opposed to that of the politicians in power.
Referendums in the United Kingdom are occasionally held at a national, regional or local level. National referendums can be permitted by an Act of Parliament and regulated through the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, but they are by tradition extremely rare due to the principle of parliamentary sovereignty meaning that they cannot be constitutionally binding on either the Government or Parliament, although they usually have a persuasive political effect.
A referendum, in the Italian legal system is a request directed to the whole electorate to express their view on a determined question. It is the main instrument of direct democracy in Italy.
Elections in Belgium are organised for legislative bodies only, and not for executive functions. Direct elections take place for the European Parliament, the bicameral Federal Parliament, the Parliaments of the Communities and Regions, the provincial councils, the municipal councils and a few district councils. Voting is mandatory and all elections use proportional representation which in general requires coalition governments.
Elections in Benin take place within the framework of a multi-party democracy and a presidential system. Both the President and the National Assembly are directly elected by voters, with elections organised by the Autonomous National Electoral Commission (CENA).
Referendums in Australia are polls held in Australia to approve parliament-proposed changes to the Constitution of Australia or to the constitutions of states and territories. Polls conducted on non-constitutional issues are usually referred to as plebiscites.
Italy elects, at the national level, a Parliament consisting of two houses: the Chamber of Deputies with 630 members; and the Senate of the Republic with 315 elected members, plus a few senators for life. The President of the Republic is elected for a seven-year term by the two houses of Parliament in joint session.
Elections in Luxembourg are held to determine the political composition of the representative institutions of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Luxembourg is a liberal representative democracy, with universal suffrage guaranteed under the constitution. Elections are held regularly, and are considered to be fair and free.
Elections in Lithuania gives information on elections and election results in Lithuania.
Malta elects on a national level 6 MEPs representing Malta in the European Parliament, on a district level the legislature, On a local level the Local Councils and on a community level the Administrative Committees.
A process model is, in the context of the republic debate in Australia, a model for the process by which the questions surrounding whether and how Australia should become a republic may be answered. A number of process models have been processed. Proposed process models are a subject of debate within the Republicanism movement. Such debate usually surrounds whether the people should be asked to choose between the current system and a general republican system of government, one specific republican system of government, or multiple alternative republican systems of government.
A constitutional referendum was held in Kyrgyzstan on 21 October 2007, following the constitutional crisis caused by amendments passed since the Tulip Revolution in 2005 being invalidated by the Constitutional Court of Kyrgyzstan on 14 September 2007. Voters were asked whether questions on a new constitution and electoral law. Both were approved by over 95% of voters.
Xavier Bettel is a Luxembourgish politician and lawyer, serving as the 22nd Prime Minister of Luxembourg since 4 December 2013 after succeeding Jean-Claude Juncker. He has previously served as Mayor of Luxembourg City, member of the Chamber of Deputies and member of the Luxembourg City communal council. Bettel is a member of the Democratic Party. Following the 2018 Luxembourg general election he became the first openly gay Prime Minister in the world to be re-elected for a second term.
A fifteen-part constitutional referendum was held in Colombia on 25 October 2003. Whilst all fifteen proposals were approved by voters, only one question had a sufficient numbers of votes to pass the 25% quorum requirement.
The Maulkuerfgesetz was a proposed 1937 law in Luxembourg. Officially, it was entitled the "Law for the defence of the political and social order" but was nicknamed Maulkuerfgesetz by its opponents. The law would have allowed the Luxembourgish government to ban the Communist Party and dissolve any political organisation which they believed might endanger the constitutional institutions. The members of these parties or organisations would be stripped of their political offices and could not be employed by the state or by local governments.
A referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This article summarises referendum laws and practice in various countries.
The First Bettel–Schneider Ministry was the ruling government of Luxembourg from 4 December 2013 to 5 December 2018. It was led by Prime Minister Xavier Bettel and Deputy Prime Minister Étienne Schneider. It was formed on 4 December 2013, after the 2013 election to the Chamber of Deputies. The government wa a traffic light coalition between the Democratic Party (DP), the Luxembourg Socialist Workers' Party (LSAP), and The Greens. It was succeeded by Bettel–Schneider Ministry II in December 2018.
The European Union Referendum Act 2015(c. 36) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that made legal provision for a pre-legislative referendum to be held in the United Kingdom and Gibraltar, on whether it should remain a member state of the European Union or leave it. The bill was introduced to the House of Commons by Philip Hammond, Foreign Secretary on 28 May 2015. Two weeks later, the second reading of the Act was supported by MPs from all parties except the SNP; the Act subsequently passed on its third reading in the Commons on 7 September 2015 and was approved by the House of Lords on 14 December 2015, and given Royal Assent on 17 December 2015 and came partly into force on the same day and came into full legal force on 1 February 2016.
General elections were held in Luxembourg on 14 October 2018. All 60 seats of the Chamber of Deputies were elected.
The Italian Electoral law of 2017, colloquially known by the nickname Rosatellum bis or simply Rosatellum, after Ettore Rosato, the Democratic leader in the Chamber of Deputies who first proposed the new law, is a parallel voting system, which act as a mixed system, with 37% of seats allocated using a first past the post electoral system and 61% using a proportional method, with one round of voting. The Senate and the Chamber of Deputies did not differ in the way they allocated the proportional seats, both using the largest remainder method of allocating seats.
