Rightist party leads in Switzerland
Reuters
Published: October 21, 2007
ZURICH:
The rightist Swiss People's Party consolidated its position as the biggest group in Parliament on Sunday, winning nearly 29 percent of the vote, according to preliminary election results.
The populist SVP's victory was widely expected after it ran a controversial campaign calling for the expulsion of foreigners who commit serious crimes. The party lifted its share of the vote by 2.1 percentage points to 28.8 percent.
Its nearest rivals, the Social Democrats, lost 4 percentage points to 19.1 percent of the vote, according to a national projection provided by the Swiss broadcaster SF, partly because environmentally minded voters turned to the Greens.
The center-right Free Democrats took 15.9 percent of the vote in the alpine nation, a slight decline from 2003, while the center-left, family-friendly Christian Democrats were steady at 14.6 percent.
The Greens took 9.5 percent of the vote, an increase of 1.8 percentage points.
