THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: The far-right Swiss People's Party is aiming to make history at Sunday's elections by winning over 30 per cent of the vote, a result which could upset the main parties' long-standing power sharing deal.
While the SVP's anti-immigrant campaigns, including calls to ban minarets and expel foreign criminals, have drawn sharp criticism on the international arena including from the United Nations, the party has managed to increase its vote share in successive Swiss elections.
In 2003, the party obtained 26.6 per cent of votes case. At the last elections that improved to 28.9 per cent.
Those 1997 results were the highest for any Swiss party since the introduction of the proportional representation system in 1919, an SVP spokesman said.
Crossing the 30 per cent mark "would therefore be a new record," he added.
The latest opinion polls showed 29.3 per cent of voters planning to back the SVP, far more than the next most popular party the Socialists, with just 19.9 per cent.
That could bolster the populist party's case for greater cabinet representation. » | Thursday, October 20, 2011
My comment:
The Swiss are very clever people who always look after 'number one' first. The Swiss are a very proud people who love their country. They like it the way it is, and they want to keep it that way. And who can blame them for that? – © Mark
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