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Article: Mob rule OK; Switzerland's election.(The right wins)(Swiss People's Party driven to the right by Christoph Blocher)
- Article from:
- The Economist (US)
- Article date:
- October 25, 2003
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2003 Economist Newspaper Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Success for the xenophobic right in the Swiss election
FEW members of a European coalition government would dare to publish a newspaper advertisement that brazenly blames crime on "black Africans". Yet the Swiss People's Party, or SVP, part of Switzerland's four-party federal council, did so repeatedly before the country's general election on October 19th. The right-wing party's onslaught on asylum-seekers and foreigners drew unusually stern condemnation from the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Despite (or perhaps because of) this, the SVP was rewarded with just under 27% of the vote, making it for the first time the biggest ...