The first thing we are going to do before knowing the meaning of the term popular consultation is to do the same with the etymological origin of the two words that give it shape:
-Consultation derives from Latin, exactly from the verb “consultare”, which can be translated as “ask for advice”.
-Popular also comes from Latin. In his case it emanates from the term “popularis”, which means “relative to the people”. It is the result of the sum of the noun “populus”, which can be translated as “people” and the suffix “-ar”, which is used to indicate “relative to”.
The act and result of consulting is called consultation : requesting an opinion or opinion from someone; search or analyze something. Popular , for its part, is that linked to the town (the group of people who live in a place).
A popular consultation is a mechanism that enables citizen participation in a decision-making process . Through this type of consultation, people can demonstrate and, in this way, decide what will be done regarding a certain issue.
Although popular consultations can develop in different ways, they generally allow citizens to approve or reject something. In this way, the popular consultation supposes the exercise of direct democracy .
It is possible to submit a plebiscite, a proposed law , a legislative project or the revocation of a mandate to a popular consultation. The rulers or legislative bodies have the obligation to abide by the result of the vote. However, it should be noted that the popular consultation can be decisive or simply advisory .
Suppose that, according to the constitution of a country, the revocation of the president's mandate can be submitted to a popular consultation when it is possible to gather a number of signatures equivalent to 25% of the electoral roll. The opposition, by gathering the necessary signatures, requests the implementation of the mechanism and thus begins a popular consultation: voters must choose whether the president has to continue his mandate or if, on the contrary, elections should be called again. As the result of the popular consultation is decisive and the request for revocation is imposed with 69% of the votes, it is decided to call elections again.
Precisely during the year 2018 in Spain, a popular consultation was carried out in the city of Madrid as well as in other surrounding towns that has no consequences but aims to show the wishes of the population. Specifically, its objective was to know if citizens would prefer the existence of a republic in the country or would choose to maintain the monarchy that exists today.
The result of this popular consultation could not have been more overwhelming. Yes, because 93% of those who participated voted in favor of the republic as a form of state, specifically, around 21,000 people.
This consultation is the one that has been carried out at street level after another similar one was undertaken at the Autonomous University of Madrid. And they will not be the only ones, since other similar ones are planned to be carried out in the rest of Spain.