Aziz on Referenda

Alberto Aziz Nassif says the problem with Sunday's referendum wasn't the idea but the execution: ambiguous and misleading questions and a lack of consensus about the consultation doomed it to something between irrelevance and farce. (That's my characterization, not his.) I disagree. Referenda can have a valuable role in democracy, but only on simple questions. That's not a slam of José Sixpack; no one who didn't devote hours upon hours reading up on Mexico's energy reform would be able to make an informed decision. Contrast that with perhaps the most famous referendum ever --Chile's defiant "No" to Augusto Pinochet in 1988-- and you get a good idea of the sort of gut-level questions for which a referendum makes sense. Perhaps the principle should be, if you can summarize the positions and the basic case for pro and con in a 90 seconds or less, than a referendum makes sense. If you can't, it doesn't.