Switzerland: the business of signatures for votes, the hidden face of Swiss democracy
This Sunday, we were to vote in Switzerland.
Had to, because the traditional federal votes were canceled by the government, for lack of a text ready to be submitted to the Swiss.
REUTERS/Eric Gaillard
Text by: RFI Follow
2 mins
This Sunday, November 27, we were to vote in Switzerland.
Had to, because the traditional federal votes were canceled by the government, for lack of a text ready to be submitted to the Swiss.
The opportunity to return to the hidden face of direct democracy among our neighbors, with the business of collecting signatures.
It takes 100,000 to trigger a vote at the national level.
Painstaking work, increasingly delegated to private companies.
Not always very scrupulous about how to proceed.
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With our correspondent in Geneva
,
Jérémie Lanche
Paying someone to collect signatures in the street is not illegal.
But the method raises questions, especially when we know that those who take care of it are paid on signing.
Price: between 1 and 3 francs the initials according to the companies - about the same thing in euros - explains Carole Pantet.
She is a journalist and carried out the investigation for the Swiss Radio and Television (RTS): “
It's really a precarious little job, at the signature.
It means that the political base, the political belief, it is far behind;
there, we really have the same objective as if we are a representative for a telephone operator and we want to make the maximum number of subscriptions, we are in sales.
»
"
money machine
"
The problem when you pay someone to collect signatures is also that they can lie: "
For an initiative that tends to limit abortion, there is someone who presents the initiative as being in favor of the right to abortion, we are deceiving the citizen.
It's a money machine after all, we pay for signatures, we pay for a vote, and then there's nothing representative about it
.
»
Few of the parties say that they go through service providers to collect the precious signatures.
Image issue.
In some cases, companies can provide between 30 and 70% of the total required for the Swiss to vote on a text.
So far, the government has always refused to ban the method, believing that the excesses were marginal;
only the canton of Neuchâtel decided to make the practice illegal.
► To read also: The Swiss narrowly vote to extend women's work by one year
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