Navigation

Goat busters

Keystone

He’s suffered the trauma of abduction and being blacked up, but Zottel the goat is home.

This content was published on October 23, 2011 - 20:25

Just days before the parliamentary election, the missing mascot of the Swiss People’s Party was found painted black alongside another goat and tied to a tree in a village near Zurich.

But the People’s Party might want to consider a new lucky charm: according to provisional results on Sunday evening voters have shifted their support to small new parties and the People’s Party has lost some 2.1 percentage points since 2007.

In 2007, the People’s Party scooped 28.9 per cent of the vote after a provocative campaign where it depicted foreigners convicted of committing crimes as “black sheep” who should be kicked out of the country.

Ten-year-old Zottel, who’s been used as a mascot at campaign events for the past five years, was snatched from his stall in the early hours last Saturday.

A radical leftwing group has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping in an online statement, but Zottel’s owner and People’s Party lawmaker Ernst Schibli said he still wasn’t sure who was behind the abduction.

“At the moment he and his friend Mimo are a bit in shock, but mostly exhausted and probably happy that they're home.”  

In compliance with the JTI standards

In compliance with the JTI standards

More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative

You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here. Please join us!

If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.

Sort by

Change your password

Do you really want to delete your profile?

Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again.
Almost finished... We need to confirm your email address. To complete the subscription process, please click the link in the email we just sent you.

Discover our weekly must-reads for free!

Sign up to get our top stories straight into your mailbox.

The SBC Privacy Policy provides additional information on how your data is processed.