Glarus turns down giving vote to foreigners

Voters in the central Swiss canton of Glarus have overwhelmingly rejected giving foreigners the right to vote at both cantonal and communal levels.

At their traditional annual open-air meeting (Landsgemeinde) in the town centre on Sunday, they decided against supporting a plan put forward by 80 people who said that foreigners who lived, worked and paid taxes in the canton should also have the right to vote.

After a lengthy discussion on the issue, held under heavy rain, the meeting voted in favour of a recommendation made by the Glarus government and parliament.

This argued that the way to have a say in local politics was to gain Swiss citizenship. The right to vote, it added, came at the end of the integration process of foreigners and not at the beginning.

Only cantons Neuchâtel and Jura in the western French-speaking part of Switzerland have introduced voting for foreigners at both cantonal and communal levels.

But a number of cantons have introduced voting for foreigners with various restrictions.

swissinfo.ch and agencies