Assemblies

Abstract

Elected assemblies are the very symbol of representative government. This is seen most dramatically in times of political crisis. For example, in August 1991 an eight-man junta of hard-line communist ministers and officials attempted a coup in the Soviet Union. With President Gorbachev under house arrest in his holiday home on the Black Sea, the ‘White House’ (the parliament building of the Russian Federation in Moscow) became the leading focus of resistance. Boris Yeltsin and his band of Russian deputies remained in the parliament building for several days, protected by a sizeable crowd and a few elderly tanks. Serious coup-makers would have flattened the place. Fortunately, these were not forceful conspirators. Their bluff was called and the coup collapsed. The ‘White House’ had become a powerful symbol of popular sovereignty and democracy.