Switzerland: The Swiss electorate has voted against two government initiative intended to make it easier for young Swiss-born foreigners to obtain Swiss nationality.
The results of yesterday's referendum has disappointed the country's mainstream parties while boosting the standing of the right-wing populist Swiss People's Party (SVP), the only party to campaign for a No vote.
Some 1.5 million foreign nationals live in Switzerland, about one in five of the population. Most of these foreigners are either Swiss-born or have been resident in the country for 10 years or more.
The current naturalisation system is complicated and expensive, in some cases costing tens of thousands of francs. The cumbersome process acts as a deterrent, and has arguably led to a poor level of integration for second and third-generation foreigners.
Currently, 40 per cent of local Swiss junior football team players are not Swiss nationals. The main nationalities would be Italian, Portuguese and nationalities from the Balkans.
In the final days before the referendum, five parties from across the political spectrum - socialists, greens, Christian democrats, liberals and radicals - made a joint appeal to the Swiss people to reject the climate of fear and hatred and the destructive methods of the No campaign.
The methods they referred to included a newspaper article-style advertisement that was placed in several newspapers but boycotted by others. It was also distributed by mail. The advertisement claimed that "thanks to automatic naturalisation" Muslims would be the majority in Switzerland within 20 years.
The main poster of the "no to mass naturalisations" campaign showed Swiss passports being grabbed at by hands of various skin colours.
Some commentators attributed the failure of the Yes campaign to too much concentration on a parallel referendum on introducing statutory maternity benefits for working women, which was passed by 55.6 per cent to 44.4.
There may also have been some complacency about popular support for the government measures. In August, polls indicated that two-thirds of voters supported the naturalisation reforms. Closer to polling this majority had shrunk to a negligible level.
The final result was 56.8 per cent against easier naturalisation for young second-generation foreigners, and 51.6 per cent against birthright Swiss citizenship for third-generation foreigners.
The vote has again revealed the division between French and German-speaking Switzerland. The French-speaking cantons voted overwhelmingly in favour of the naturalisation proposals. The German-speaking majority voted No by two to one.