Swiss Abroad overwhelmingly reject capping Swiss population

Should Switzerland’s population be capped at ten million by 2050? On June 14, seven out of ten Swiss citizens living abroad said no. Keystone / Christian Beutler

Swiss voters who live abroad have rejected an initiative to limit the population even more decisively than voters within Switzerland. Seven out of ten Swiss Abroad voters crossed the no box. However, when it came to the reform of civilian service, there was little difference inside or outside the country.

Nearly 55% of the Swiss electorate said no on Sunday to the “No to ten million” immigration initiative from the right-wing Swiss People’s Party, which sought to cap the country’s population at ten million by 2050 by drastically restricting immigration. It’s currently 9.1 million.

More than 70% of expatriate voters said no, according to figures provided by the Federal Statistical Office (FSO).

The rejection was even more decisive than the polls had suggested. In the latest opinion poll conducted by gfs.bern around ten days before the vote, 63% of Swiss citizens living abroad surveyed expected to reject the proposal.

No surprise

This result comes as no surprise to Martina Mousson, a political scientist from the gfs.bern polling institute, as it is consistent with the typical voting pattern of Swiss citizens abroad. “[The Swiss Abroad] generally vote more to the left,” she said. “This is even more pronounced when it comes to issues relating to Europe and immigration, as this section of the population is heavily dependent on good relations with the European Union and also benefits from the free movement of people.”

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The Organisation of the Swiss Abroad had also spoken out against the proposal, fearing it would undermine the status of the 480,000 Swiss nationals living in the EU.

>> Read our analysis of Sunday’s vote:

Mousson added that the diaspora’s vote on this issue bears the hallmarks of an urban vote. In Switzerland, a sharp urban-rural divide emerged during this vote, and it was mainly in urban centres that rejection of the initiative reached comparable levels.

She also noted that fears for the economy were a key factor in tipping the balance towards a no vote. “In Switzerland, almost everyone agrees that the infrastructure is sometimes reaching its limits, but ultimately, that is not why people voted for or against this proposal,” she said. “This is even more true for Swiss citizens living abroad, who are less concerned with issues related to population density and more focused on economic risks.”

>> Read the analysis of political scientist Urs Bieri:

Civil service reform

The second issue put to the vote on Sunday – the tightening of civil service requirements – was accepted by 52.5% of the vote. The Swiss Abroad also voted yes in similar proportions (nearly 52%) and in almost all cantons for which detailed figures are available – in some cantons, the yes vote was even more pronounced.

This result is more surprising to Martina Mousson, who had expected a more decisive no vote among Swiss citizens living abroad. The urban-rural divide, which was also evident within the country on this issue, does not materialise in the diaspora vote, she observed. On this issue, expat citizens did not, for once, vote more to the left than Swiss citizens living in Switzerland.

How can this be explained? Mousson puts forward the hypothesis that “current geopolitical uncertainties may weigh even more heavily on people living in other European countries”. “Geopolitical tensions do, after all, form the backdrop to this decision, and many people feel that now is not the time to weaken the army,” she said.

High turnout

Nationwide, turnout for this vote was ten percentage points higher than the average since 2021. For the “No to ten million” initiative, which was the driving force behind the vote, turnout was 58.9%. This is the second-highest turnout in the past five years, after that of November 28, 2021, when the public was called upon to vote on the legal basis for introducing the Covid-19 certificate (65.3%).

Mousson attributes this to the “high level of emotion expressed in the debate” on the People Party initiative and to the exceptional media coverage of the campaign.

A surge in turnout was also seen among the diaspora, although on a smaller scale than in Switzerland. More than 28% of registered voters (46,195 out of 164,553) voted on this issue, four percentage points higher than the average over the past five years.

This is the third most mobilising vote for the diaspora in the past five years, following those of September 26, 2021 (marriage for all) and March 3, 2024 (13th pension payment), in which more than 28.5% of expats took part.

The “No to ten million” initiative also received extensive international coverage, which certainly helps to explain this level of engagement.

Edited by Samuel Jaberg. Translated from French by AI/ts

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