ANGELIKE GARDINER
I was born in
Munich in 1941 and now I am a retired journalist in
Hamburg. My
first experience with direct democracy dates back to the
sixties when
I still lived in Bavaria. There direct domcracy was
introduced shortly
after World War II. Hamburg was the last Bundesland
to finally
allow referendums in 1996. I became a member of Mehr
Demokratie in
1997 and took part in the first campaign in Hamburg. Our
goal then was
to improve the practicability of the new law because it
was so spiked
with obstacles that it seemed almost impossible to run a
successful campaign.
At the same time we won a referendum to introduce
referendums
on a more local level. Our next step was to reform the
electoral system
in Hamburg to give the voters more influence. We must
remember that
for about fifty years Hamburg had the same electoral system
that Putin is
now imposing on Russia -- we could only vote for a party, not
for certain
candidates. And there were no constituencies. So the party
bosses dictated
who was worthy of a seat in parliament. On June 13th we
(and the people
of Hamburg) changed that -- it was the first time in
European history
that an electoral system was thrown over by direct
democracy.
For many years
I have worked in grass roots groups and NGOs dealing
with human rights,
women's rights, environment and development. This is
also what I
wrote about during my 40 years in newspaper, radio and
magazine journalism.
I am a board member of Mehr Demokratie in Hamburg and Mehr Bürgerrechte.
There is a photo of me on www.faires-wahlrecht.de under Kontakt.