In the midst of the fifth wave, a large majority of Swiss approved on Sunday the law that made it possible to introduce the health passport, in a vote marked by a very high turnout at the end of a stormy election campaign.
While the police feared protests, only a few dozen opponents of the COVID law gathered in front of the seat of government and parliament in Bern, placed under high security and surrounded by a chain-link fence.
The “yes” won 62% of the vote in this referendum, according to the final results.
The COVID certificate is reserved for people who have been vaccinated or cured, or who have taken a test. It is required to enter a restaurant or a bar, but also to see an exhibition, a film or an indoor sporting event.
The turnout, around 65%, is the 4th highest since the introduction of women’s suffrage in 1971, in a country where the average turnout is 46% for this type of consultation.
This referendum, which had been launched by the anti-passport, comes as the new Omicron variant detected by South Africa and described as “worrying” by the World Health Organization, has plunged the planet back into a state of alert.
According to one of Switzerland’s most renowned political scientists, Claude Longchamp, this is the first time that the Federal Palace has been sealed off on a federal voting Sunday.
“The Federal Council should ask itself the question whether it is not responsible for possible excesses, because by pushing people to the limit with coercive measures […] perhaps we are pushing people to have reactions that are a little too strong, ”Michelle Cailler, spokesperson for Friends of the Constitution, one of the groups behind the referendum, told AFP.
During the campaign, many politicians, including Health Minister Alain Berset, received death threats and are now placed under police protection.
The campaign was also marked by numerous demonstrations, sometimes banned and punctuated by violence, however far from scenes of riots such as those which took place in the Netherlands or the French West Indies.
But the rise of tensions in Switzerland, a country renowned for its culture of dialogue and compromise and where referendums are organized several times a year in a peaceful atmosphere, had the effect of an electric shock.
Call for vaccination
On Sunday, the Swiss also approved – almost 61% and the vast majority of cantons – a popular initiative on nursing care which asks the Confederation to guarantee “appropriate remuneration” for care services.
These two votes came as Switzerland is experiencing a surge in infections. But unlike other countries, the government has so far refused to toughen national control measures.
“The situation is currently under control,” Berset said on Wednesday, while calling on the cantons to take measures and the population to respect basic health measures.
The President of the Confederation Guy Parmelin, however, launched a new call for vaccination in Sunday newspapers.
However, a majority of the Swiss population seems to want stronger measures. According to a poll in the SonntagsBlick, nearly two-thirds of those polled want only those who are vaccinated or cured to be able to live without restrictions and just over half of them would favor compulsory vaccination.
“Sanitary apartheid”
With around 65% of the population fully vaccinated, Switzerland lags behind other countries in Western Europe.
This is the second time in less than six months that the population has been called upon to vote on the COVID law. In June, citizens supported it with 60% of the vote.
But the law having been modified to give more latitude to the authorities to fight the pandemic and allow the establishment of the COVID certificate, the anti-passport had launched a second referendum to counter what they consider to be a “health apartheid”.
All political movements, with the exception of the right-wing populist UDC, the country’s largest party, called for support for the law.
With Fabrice Coffrini in Bern