I decided to make use of my rights as a Swiss abroad and take part in the next popular vote on 9 June.
Yesterday I received some snail-mail: an envelope with materials about the upcoming popular vote taking place across Switzerland on 9 June 2024.
As a Swiss citizen registered for voting I can partake in these quarterly pilgrimages to the voting box via postal vote, and if I’m interested in the topic(s), and I think the voting materials have a chance of getting back to the municipality where I’m registered in time, I will do so.
The front page of the red government-issued booklet lists the four questions put before the people of Switzerland. On the back page you see how the government wants you to vote. The cynic in me thinks there’s already an unfair advantage for the government, because if you’re super lazy you don’t even look inside to make up your mind.
Inside the booklet you’ll find the detailed arguments by the organisation committees of the initiatives or referenda, followed by the arguments by the executive and the parliament (who have already formed an opinion on each of the proposals), as well as the actual text of the proposed changes to the Swiss constitution. Yes, the constitution! The people can only propose changes to the constitution, which would direct the government to create laws in line with those proposed changes. That’s one of the reasons why our constitution needs a bit of a cleanup from time to time.
You can read the 88-page booklet in colour and in English here. You can learn more about how popular initiatives work here, and you can find out more about referenda here.
So what is this round of voting all about?
Two popular initiatives seek to address the insane health insurance cost increases. Switzerland has a high quality health system, but it’s rapidly becoming unaffordable for the average citizen. There is no Medicare and you have no choice but to take out health insurance. For years, politicians have recognised there’s a problem and promised action, but nobody seems to have a clue what to do about it.
By way of illustration, the graph below shows the cost of compulsory health insurance over the last ten years (dark blue line), compared with how the general economy is doing (blue line), and nominal pay increases (light blue line).
The thing is, neither of the popular initiatives really addresses the underlying causes of the problem, and the government has already promised a counter-proposal, which will be adopted if these two popular initiatives fail: it would make health insurers more accountable for the premium increases they demand. I know, that doesn’t sound like much either, and time will tell, but in my view it’s slightly better than the proposed bandaid solutions.
So that’s a NO to both initiatives from me. Perhaps Switzerland should look towards Singapore, which is taking a different approach.
Then there is the initiative for freedom and physical integrity, which was sparked by the covid era. The government of course wants the people to vote down this initiative, arguing that the Swiss constitution already guarantees ‘my body – my choice’ rights. That may be so (for example Article 10 [1]), but we saw during covid how effective this ‘protection’ was. Like in most other countries, those who refused to be injected were shunned and excluded from society for a considerable period, with sometimes devastating consequences.
The initiative wants to ensure that those who refuse to subject themselves to such medical interventions do not suffer any kind of disadvantage or punishment. Now that’s a clear YES from me.
Finally, a committee of concerned citizen has gathered enough votes for a referendum against a law that was passed by parliament last year, which seeks to build renewable energy projects that would allow Switzerland to produce all the electricity the country needs all year round (currently the country imports electricity during the winter months).
Again, I won’t go into details here, but I think so-called renewable energy technologies are a nonsense. They are anything but environmentally friendly, make energy much more expensive as we now see in different parts of the world, and because in Switzerland renewables means mainly hydro and wind, they would have a considerable impact on nature.
In my mind, the best solution would be nuclear power. Therefore, I vote NO, in favour of this referendum. Huh? Yes, I vote NO! It’s just that the question is phrased around the original law: ‘Do you want to accept the […] law which was passed on 29 September 2023?’ NO!
Today, after writing YES or NO in the relevant boxes of the ballot papers, signing my voting certificate and placing both in the same ingeniously designed envelope in which they had arrived (see video below and enjoy the cartoonish voiceover), I queued up at the post office for 45 minutes and then forked out a small fortune in return for a vague promise that express post would guarantee that the item would arrive in time in the mailbox of my municipality.
Finally, why the quote marks around ‘direct democracy’ in the title of this post? Well, I’m not going to discuss here the meaningfulness of voting as a democratic process. But I’m not going to complain either. At least us Swiss have some opportunity to directly influence politics through this mechanism, even though there are flaws and hurdles and in reality, few initiatives and referenda succeed.
Stay tuned for part 2, which will be about the outcome. My prediction is that the people will vote with the government.
Still, I live in hope, and I’ve done my bit.
[1] Art. 10 states: “Every human has the right to personal freedom, in particular to bodily and mental intactness, and to freedom of movement.” [My translation]
