Crowdsourcing Iceland\'s Constitution

REYKJAVIK - Icelanders like to do it their way. Where else do you get to dine on minke whale and puffin and routinely address the prime minister by her first name?

True to their tradition of doing things differently, Europe's most sparsely populated state has just held a referendum on what is said to be the world's first “crowdsourced” constitution, drawing on suggestions from Facebook and Twitter about how to run the country.

Enthusiasts of open government say the initiative could be a model for people power in other parts of the world where politicians monopolize policy decisions in the face of mounting crises.

Two-thirds of voters in the referendum, which took place last weekend, backed a proposed constitution put together by a 25-member Constitutional Council who took into account comments they received via social media.

Around half of Iceland's 235,000-strong electorate participated. Citizens also backed specific measures that included grea ter national control over the island's natural resources.

Although the vote is not binding on Iceland's Parliament, the Althing, supporters of change believe it will be difficult for politicians to ignore the outcome.

Proposals for a new constitution grew out of a 2008 crisis that saw the collapse of the country's heavily indebted banks. The ensuing economic meltdown focused on alleged corruption among entrenched political and business elites and foreign ownership of natural resources.

Following the so-called Pots and Pans Revolution in which Icelanders took their noisy mass protests to the doors of Parliament in the wake of the bank crash, the government chose a panel of ordinary citizens to come up with proposals for constitutional reform.

Iceland has used a Constitution based closely on the Danish model since it gained its independence from Denmark in 1944.

In a country that has one of the highest penetrations of Internet usage - 94 percent o f the 320,000 population has access to the Web - the panel set up a Facebook page to attract comments and suggestions.

“Through the use of social media…Iceland opens the doors to everyone around the world to observe or participate,” according to an article on OpenSource.com, Website that encourages greater public participation in politics. “Anyone can send in suggestions or comments that will potentially be added to their constitution.”

As my colleague Sarah Lyall wrote in a survey of Iceland's progress in July, the country appears to be doing surprisingly well four years after plunging into “a financial abyss so deep it all but shut down overnight.”

The proposed constitution reflects a desire to ensure a similar disaster does not strike again and to limit the powers of those blamed for causing it.

Writing from Iceland this week for Counter Punch, Jose M. Tirado said the weekend vote was either “a shining example for the democracies o f the world, or a sham pseudo-revolution designed by amateurs to upset a rickety apple-cart only now righting itself.”

Among six questions put to the electorate , the highest “yes” vote, 81 percent, favored a constitutional guarantee to ensure that natural resources not already privately owned should be declared national property.

That translates into a widespread desire for greater national control of Iceland's lucrative fish stocks and the geothermal energy resources that heats nine out of ten of Iceland's homes.

A draft bill will now go before Parliament, possibly as early as next month, and Icelanders will vote on adopting their new crowdsourced constitution next spring.