Switzerland troubled national exhibition project, Expo.02, is failing to enthuse the country's public, according to a new opinion poll. Seventy per cent of the Swiss wouldn't care if it were abandoned, it says.

The poll carried out by the French-speaking newspaper "dimanche.ch", found that only 30 per cent would be sorry if Expo.02 didn't take place in two year's time. The news is likely to be a cause of concern for the Expo.02 management team, who had seen the project's poll ratings rise from a 37 per cent approval rating in June 1999 to 50 per cent in June this year.

Just over 42 per cent of those polled thought Expo.02 would be a modest success, while 34 per cent thought it would be a failure. Almost half of those questioned thought that if the event failed to take place, the blame should fall on the management team.

Expo.02's management was the subject of scrutiny last week, when there was reportedly a serious dispute between the director, Nelly Wenger, and the artistic director, Martin Heller. Allegations also surfaced of shoddy, cost-cutting workmanship on one of the exhibition's prime sites, the "Arteplage" - an artificial platform on Lake Neuchatel.


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