The votes on September 27 are fast approaching – are you ready?
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Listening: The votes on September 27 are fast approaching – are you ready?
Dear Swiss Abroad,
If you have recently been in Switzerland, you can’t have failed to notice them: posters in support of the neutrality initiative are on every street corner. The former government minister from the right-wing Swiss People’s Party and father of the initiative, billionaire Christoph Blocher, has himself injected CHF3 million ($3.75 million) into the campaign.
These investments do not yet seem to be paying off. The first SBC poll ahead of the vote on September 27, published on Friday, shows that 54% of the electorate say they intend to reject the proposal, which aims to enshrine a stricter interpretation of neutrality in the Constitution. Yet the initiative’s opponents have only just launched their campaign. At 85, Blocher could therefore lose his last major political battle.
The other striking finding from this first poll concerns the food initiative, which calls on the government to encourage the production and consumption of plant-based foods. As the initiative doesn’t have the backing of any major party, one might have expected the initiative’s opponents to hold a comfortable lead. However, the yes and no camps are currently neck and neck: 49% of those surveyed reject the initiative, while 47% support it.
The drought currently affecting Switzerland and much of Europe may well have played a part in this result. However, the initiative’s backers are likely to lose ground as the campaign progresses, which will probably lead to the initiative being rejected. If you have already received your voting pack, we have compiled all our explanatory articles and the detailed results of the latest poll for your convenience.
We hope you find this useful,
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As a correspondent at the Federal Palace for SWI swissinfo.ch, I report on federal politics for the Swiss Abroad.
After studying at the Academy of Journalism and Media at the University of Neuchâtel, my career path initially took me to various regional media, working in the editorial offices of Journal du Jura, Canal 3 and Radio Jura bernois. Since 2015, I have been working in the multilingual editorial department of SWI swissinfo.ch, where I continue to practise my profession with passion.
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