Foreigners living in Switzerland can’t vote in national referendums.

However, in five cantons — Geneva, Vaud, Fribourg, Neuchâtel, and Jura — longtime foreign residents already have some, though limited, rights on the political arena.

Of the five cantons, only Neuchâtel and Jura authorise foreign residents to vote on cantonal level in addition to communal one; in the others, they can cast municipal ballots only.

But in Geneva, the most ‘international’ Swiss canton where nearly half of the population is made up of foreign nationals, a popular initiative will seek to grant local foreigners more sweeping rights on the cantonal level

The proposal, launched by the trade unions and political left, goes even further in Geneva than in Neuchâtel and Jura: foreigners who have lived in the canton for at least eight years, would be able to vote and stand as candidates for political offices at the cantonal level — the latter one not permitted in the two other cantons.

If the initiative is approved, Geneva would be the first canton to pass such a law.

READ ALSO: Could Geneva be first Swiss canton to grant foreign residents more voting rights? 

‘It goes too far’

While supporters of the initiative point out that granting cantonal voting rights to foreigners would enable them to have more political impact and feel more integrated, opponents argue that this move is not rational.

And the opposition comes not only from the usual quarters — the right-wingers — but also from more moderate parties.

“It goes too far,” Geneva MP Murat Julian Alder from the Liberal-Radical Party (PLR) told Tribune de Genève in an interview. 

For one, “the initiative only provides for a period of residence of eight years in Switzerland without requiring the C permit. In addition, we accept the fact that it will no longer be necessary to master the French language or to respect the values of our Constitution to obtain political rights,” he said.

Alder also raised the extreme, but nevertheless not totally unlikely example, of a foreign national elected to Geneva’s cantonal parliament, and from there on, to the national one.

“A foreigner could therefore be elected in Bern and decide on questions of national security and foreign policy. This is unacceptable.”

He added that restrictions placed on foreigners in terms of voting are not unusual in European comparison.

“Within the EU, only European nationals vote in municipal matters and in European elections.”

The only path to full voting rights: Swiss passport

Alder also pointed out that “nothing prevents [eligible] foreigners from becoming naturalised, as evidenced by the large number of elected officials of foreign origin” who hold dual citizenships.

A similar argument was brought up recently by three other centre-parties Geneva MPs, who also say that “the only path for foreigners to obtain full political rights is through naturalisation.”
 
“It’s not too much to ask people to become Swiss in order to be elected,” they noted.