In the Swiss Referendum today on September 25th, 2016, the only vote to pass was the Intelligence Service Act referendum, where the “yes” vote passed with 65.5%. The flat tax in the Schwyz canton was rejected maintaining the Marxist philosophy of class warfare. Additionally, both the vote to increase state pensions by 10% (40.6% “yes”), and the Green initiative (36.4% “yes”), failed.
Nonetheless, the pension crisis in Switzerland is also real. The vote to increase state pensions showed a clear divide between the Latin cantons (French and Italian-speaking), and the cantons that are primarily German speaking. The cantons of Jura voted 59.5% to increase government pensions, Neuchâtel was 54% in favor, Geneva came in at 53.6%, Vaud was 50.3%, and Ticino came in at 53.4%. The Latin based cantons all showed a majority in favor of increasing state pensions for workers.
With the Green initiative, only one canton, Geneva voted “yes” by 51.9%. It was very interesting to see this split between Latin and German speaking regions within Switzerland on increasing the state pensions for government workers.
