Swiss set to vote again on Covid law

Nicolas Rimoldi, one of the campaign organisers, hands in signatures to the Federal Chancellery © Keystone / Peter Klaunzer

A committee has submitted around 60,000 referendum signatures opposing the extension of certain provisions of the Covid-19 law. They say they want to draw a final line under the pandemic.

“Covid is history,” said Roland Bühlmann, co-president of Friends of the Constitution, in Bern, where the signatures were handed over to the Federal Chancellery on Thursday. “The Covid measures did not and do not make sense.” Therefore the Covid law must be repealed as soon as possible, he said.

The law has been in force since September 2020 and has since been amended several times by parliament. In its current version it will remain in force until the end of June 2024.

Voters has so far clearly backed the legal basis for pandemic measures in two referendums.

The latest referendum is directed against the extension of individual provisions of the Covid law adopted in December 2022 by parliament, including the legal basis for issuing Covid-19 certificates.

Nicolas Rimoldi, president of the Mass-voll movement, one of the campaign organisers, told the Swiss News Agency Keystone-SDA that this certificate was “no longer necessary”. “We want the population to finally be left alone now.”

The referendum committee accuses both the government and parliament of lying.

For the referendum to become official, 50,000 valid signatures are needed.

A provisional date for the vote has been set for June 18 – about four months before the federal elections. Rimoldi left open on Thursday whether members of the organising committee would run for seats in parliament. Various talks were underway, he said.

More than 14,000 people have died in Switzerland with a laboratory-confirmed Covid infection, according to government figuresExternal link.