Let's Talk Politics, Part 2: The current campaign

I think we've all seen the SVP's current campaign poster, with the white sheep kicking out a black sheep. First of all, I think the meaning of "black sheep" in German needs to be clarified: it normally does not apply to mere outsiders of a group, but is a word for people who do not obey the rules of said group. Looking at the SVP-poster, what it's saying is that we should kick out people who don't play by the rules, i.e. who do not obey Swiss law.

While the SVP is no stranger to racist connotations, I don't believe that the sheep is black in this case to say we should kick out black people. The SVP doesn't like Ex-Yugoslavians either, and those are lily-white...;-)

The whole thing is at the moment at the stage of a pending "Volksinitiative". The SVP has proposed a new article for the Swiss constitution, which would postulate that any foreigner, regardless of his or her residency status, will be deported if he or she commits a serious crime (i.e. murder, rape, human trafficking, drug trafficking, etc.).

He or she would further be banned from Switzerland from 5-15 years, up to 20 in the case of repeat offenders.

100'000 signatures are necessary for there to be a referendum on this. If the Swiss people say yes, this article will become part of our constitution, if they say no, it will be dismissed. The deadline for the 100'000 signatures is January 2009 and I have no doubt that the SVP will have no trouble coming up with that number.

I also believe that when the referendum is held, the new article will be accepted. The only scenario where I can see that it won't, is if the Parliament comes up with an "Gegenentwurf" (i.e. a usually "milder" alternative to the article proposed by the initiative), which it quite often does (and which sometimes is accepted, sometimes it's not).

Note that collective punishments (i.e. deporting entire families for the crime of one of its members) is not part of this initiative, although it admittedly is something the SVP is considering to propose in the case of minors repeatedly committing crimes (with the reasoning that if the parents can't control them, they should all leave).