Moderates stall rise of Swiss nationalists

Election officials counting votes at the parish hall in Appenzell , Switzerland Sunday Oct. 23, 2011. Swiss citizens voting in national elections Sunday were poised to hand nationalists an unprecedented 30 percent voice, following voting dominated by concerns about immigration, nuclear power and the economy. (AP Photo/Keystone/Ennio Leanza)

Election officials counting votes at the parish hall in Appenzell , Switzerland Sunday Oct. 23, 2011. Swiss citizens voting in national elections Sunday were poised to hand nationalists an unprecedented 30 percent voice, following voting dominated by concerns about immigration, nuclear power and the economy. (AP Photo/Keystone/Ennio Leanza)

Election officials counting votes at the parish hall in Appenzell , Switzerland Sunday Oct. 23, 2011. Swiss citizens voting in national elections Sunday were poised to hand nationalists an unprecedented 30 percent voice, following voting dominated by concerns about immigration, nuclear power and the economy. (AP Photo/Keystone/Ennio Leanza)

Helpers empty ballot-boxes in a polling station during the Swiss elections in Wolfenschiessen , Switzerland Sunday Oct. 23, 2011. Swiss citizens voting in national elections Sunday were poised to hand nationalists an unprecedented 30 percent voice, following voting dominated by concerns about immigration, nuclear power and the economy. (AP Photo/Keystone/Urs Flueeler)

Swiss residents fill out their election papers outside a polling booth at a polling station in the center of Geneva, Switzerland, Sunday, Oct 23, 2011. Swiss citizens voting in national elections Sunday were poised to hand nationalists an unprecedented 30 percent voice, following voting dominated by concerns about immigration, nuclear power and the economy.Word in French at left reads : Push. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)

A Swiss woman leaves a polling booth at a polling station in the center of Geneva, Switzerland, Sunday, Oct 23, 2011. Swiss citizens voting in national elections Sunday were poised to hand nationalists an unprecedented 30 percent voice, following voting dominated by concerns about immigration, nuclear power and the economy.Word in French reads : Push. (AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)

(AP) ? Swiss voters backed moderate forces in a general election Sunday in which nationalists failed in their effort to break through the 30 percent barrier with a campaign heavy on anti-immigrant sentiment.

The nationalist Swiss People's Party, or SVP, was projected to take 25.3 percent of the vote for the lower house, a drop of more than 3 percent on four years ago, according to public television station SF's latest projections.

On the left, the Greens also sustained a surprising setback, taking 8 percent of the vote, a drop of 1.6 percent. The SVP and Greens were each projected to lose seven seats in Switzerland's lower chamber, the 200-seat National Council.

"We didn't achieve our election goal," People's Party president Toni Brunner conceded as results trickled in.

The SVP remains Switzerland's biggest party. But its diminishment reverses 20 years of steady growth in parliamentary elections, which are held every four years. It drew 11 percent of the vote in 1987, but captured as much as 28.9 percent in 2007.

During that time, support had eroded for two major center-right parties, the Free Democratic Party and Christian Democratic People's Party, from a combined 42.5 percent in 1987 down to 30.3 percent in 2007.

Now, two of the SVP's small centrist competitors are rebounding ? at its expense.

The SVP's rise was stalled by the Conservative Democratic Party whose members split from the SVP in 2007, and the centrist Green Liberal Party, which picks up 9 seats in the National Council successfully riding a wave of anti-nuclear sentiment following the disaster at Japan's Fukushima plant in March.

Both those centrist parties are expected to receive about 5.2 percent of the vote for the National Council. Voters are also deciding on 45 of 46 seats for the upper house, or Council of States.

The panoply of political parties in Switzerland makes for intense haggling after every election, however, as each group demands fair representation in the country's cross-party government.

The result is a unique "magic formula," designed to condense complex electoral results into a seven-member Cabinet capable of governing by consensus in spite of sometimes widely differing views.

Despite its worse-than-expected result, the People's Party retains the biggest share of the vote and immediately laid claim to two Cabinet seats.

The party has built up a strong base of voters with campaigns warning of immigrants spoiling an Alpine nation that's been an oasis of relative stability within stormy Europe.

In its campaign, the People's Party accused foreigners of driving up Switzerland's crime rate, and called for those convicted of crimes to be deported. It also wants to reintroduce quotas on immigration from the 27 countries of the European Union, of which Switzerland isn't a member, illustrating the point with striking posters of black boots stomping on the Swiss flag with the message "Stop Mass Immigration."

The number of foreigners living in Switzerland rose almost 3 percent to 1.7 million over the past year ? mostly Italians, Germans, Portuguese and Serbs. Switzerland, along with Luxembourg and Liechtenstein, has one of the highest proportions of foreign inhabitants in Europe.

They account for one of every five of the country's nearly 7.9 million permanent residents, and mostly live in the large cities of Zurich, Geneva, Basel, Lausanne and Bern.

Many foreigners who work in Switzerland come for jobs for which they're considered highly qualified, but that hasn't stopped the Swiss from worrying that the influx of outsiders in their midst is spurring a rise in crime, house prices and joblessness.

For some voters, however, the People's Party's relentless focus on foreigners went too far.

Pushing a stroller in the capital Bern with his twin 1-year-old sons ? half Swiss, half Sri Lankan ? architect Timo Odoni pointed to one of the nationalists' posters.

"I just can't stand how they do their posters because it reminds me of 60 years before, in Germany, a little bit. And we have to do something about it," Odoni said.

"I certainly will vote the green and left parties," he said. "We have no problem with immigration, really. We have other problems, but not this problem."

___

Frank Jordans contributed to this report from Geneva.

___

Follow John Heilprin at http://www.twitter.com/JohnHeilprin

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/cae69a7523db45408eeb2b3a98c0c9c5/Article_2011-10-23-EU-Switzerland-Election/id-b06d9cbe30664e5795382e8417f4d090

execution execution facebook music facebook music daphne guinness daphne guinness mortgage rates