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

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.”  

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