Swiss to vote on closures of post offices
Two pillars of Swiss nationhood are being tested Sunday citizenship and the post office.
Voting in referendums, the cornerstone of their system of direct democracy, the Swiss will decide whether to loosen the Alpine country's tough rules on naturalising foreigners, and whether to block their government's cost-cutting campaign to shut post offices. Both have provoked bitter debate in a nation where political consensus has been the watchword.
The government's proposed change of citizenship laws represents a recognition that Switzerland, long accustomed to homogeneity within its Alpine ramparts, is becoming a multicultural society.
About one in five of the 7.2 million people living in Switzerland are foreigners _ one of the highest proportions in Europe partly because Swiss law makes citizenship relatively hard to obtain.
Under current rules, there is no automatic right to citizenship, even for children born here to foreign parents. Individuals must wait at least 12 years before they can apply. Many opt to avoid the complex procedures that in the past even included visits by inspectors who checked whether an applicant's apartment conformed to Swiss standards of cleanliness.
Under government proposals, children born to foreign parents who were themselves born or raised in Switzerland would get automatic citizenship. Youngsters born here to migrant parents or raised and schooled in Switzerland for at least five years also would be able to apply.
Voters are expected to approve the citizenship changes, with some polls showing up to 64 percent are in favor.
Right-wing opponents who claim the moves will undermine what it means to be Swiss have turned to hardball tactics.
Known for its anti-immigrant stance, the Swiss People's Party has spearheaded the campaign _ even though under Switzerland's complex political system it has two ministers in the seven-member ruling Cabinet.
The party has provoked widespread anger for campaign material featuring Osama bin Laden's photo on a Swiss identity card, and for posters showing black and brown hands reaching for Swiss passports piled in a wooden crate.
In response, left-wing and centrist parties have taken out full-page newspaper ads denouncing the campaign for peddling racism and its alleged obsession with a long-gone Switzerland.
The post office referendum focuses on nostalgia of a different kind _ and shows how market forces and the digital revolution are eating into one of the most cherished emblems of Swiss life _ Swiss Post, which was created in 1849 and helped knit together a newborn state split among speakers of four languages _ German, French, Italian and Romansch.
To the outside world, Switzerland's symbol of fiscal steadfastness is its banks. But to ordinary Swiss, it's the more than 3,300 post offices. Virtually all bills sent to households include a form for payment at the post office counter. Retirees can collect their pensions there. Many Swiss have post office bank accounts and debit cards.
Switzerland, which has been privatizing its communications industry, has closed 668 post offices over the past three years and said it plans to close 222 more. But Swiss have objected in large enough numbers to amass the 100,000 signatures needed to force a referendum in hopes of halting the closures.
Unions and mountain-dwellers' associations are backing a no vote under the slogan "Our good old post office is worth it." Right-wing parties disagree, saying the revolt could cost taxpayers 500 million Swiss francs (US$399 million; €324 million) a year while hurting Swiss Post's ability to compete against e-mail and courier services.
In fact, Swiss Post is highly profitable, but the earnings come from loans and stock-market trading offered by its financial services wing.
According to a poll in the Zurich newspaper Blick, 36 percent would vote to stop the closures and 28 percent would vote no. Thirty-six percent were undecided. Margin of error was 3.2 percentage points.
The 650 people of Celigny, a wine-growing village overlooking Lake Geneva, now have to walk or drive a mile to the nearest post office. Things were easier when Celigny had its own post office, said clothes store owner Elisa Sancosme. "Not having a small branch makes things more complicated."
Yael Wenger, a supermarket employee, said she's not so sure. "People like to hold on to what they know," she said. "I'm not strongly against the changes _ as long as the quality of the service at the counter stays the same."
Swiss Post plans to replace small offices with pared down services in supermarkets and gas stations. It says the move worked fine in Germany, Sweden and Ireland.
Even if other projected closures go ahead, Switzerland will have a post office for every 2,905 residents, compared with one for every 5,000 in other rich nations, according to U.N. data.
