Sometimes, when we take certain decisions, we get more than what we bargained for. This unforeseen turnaround is especially striking when a political leader triggers an electoral process which, along the way, is redefined by the opposition or by the citizens.
We have seen this in the case of referendums that were intended as mere ratification procedures. Take the unexpected victories of the “No” vote in the plebiscites on the Maastricht Treaty in Denmark in 1992, for example, or on the European Constitution in France and the Netherlands in 2005. We saw it in the surprise approval of Brexit in the United Kingdom in 2016, too.
