Free Republic

GENEVA -- Switzerland's anti-immigration Swiss People's Party rebounded from searing losses four years ago to become the largest parliamentary faction after the election, official results showed, as two environmentally-minded parties lost ground despite record glacier melt in the Alpine country. Pre-election polls suggested that Swiss voters had three main concerns: Rising fees for the obligatory, free market-based health insurance system; climate change, which has eroded Switzerland’s many glaciers; and worries about migrants and immigration. The final tally late Sunday showed the people's party, known as SVP by its German-language acronym, gained nine seats compared to the last vote in 2019,...

The anti-immigration Swiss People's Party (SVP) won the biggest share of the vote in Sunday's national parliamentary election, keeping pressure on Bern to introduce quotas on people moving from the European Union.

The anti-immigration Swiss People’s Party (SVP) won the biggest share of the vote in Sunday’s national parliamentary election, initial projections showed, keeping pressure on Bern to introduce quotas on people moving from the European Union. The result, based on initial projections by Swiss TV, gives the SVP 65 seats in the 200-member lower house of parliament, the largest number for any Swiss party in at least a century. The SVP’s success, coupled with gains made by the pro-business Liberal Party (FDP), led political commentators to talk of a “Rechtsrutsch” – move to the right – in Swiss politics. Immigration was...

SCHWERZENBACH, Switzerland: The posters taped on the walls at a political rally here capture the rawness of Switzerland's national electoral campaign: Three white sheep stand on the Swiss flag, as one of them kicks a single black sheep away. "For Greater Security," the poster reads. The poster is not the creation of a fringe movement, but of the most powerful party in Switzerland's federal Parliament and a member of the coalition government, an extreme-right party called the Swiss People's Party, or SVP. It has been distributed in a mass mailing to Swiss households, reproduced in newspapers and magazines and hung...

A political row has broken out in Switzerland over a campaign poster from the right-wing Swiss People's Party, aimed at deporting foreigners - residents without Swiss citizenship - who commit crimes. The poster, which shows three white sheep kicking a black sheep against a backdrop of the Swiss flag, --snip-- Swiss citizenship remains very difficult to come by, and being born in the country does not give the children or even grandchildren of immigrants the right to be Swiss

GENEVA: Right-wing politicians from Switzerland’s largest political party on Thursday launched a campaign for a referendum to ban the construction of minarets on mosques, claiming they symbolised an Islamist bid for power. The group, including more than half of the Swiss People’s Party’s (SVP) parliamentarians, said in a statement that a ban would help stop “attempts by Islamist circles to impose a legal system based on the sharia in Switzerland”. Some of the politicians said they did not oppose mosques or Muslims’ right to worship. The Swiss constitution guarantees religious freedoms and the legality of the initiative was questioned by...