Swiss perspectives in 10 languages

Election candidates with ‘foreign’ names face discrimination, says study

Mustafa Atici and Matthias Aebischer
Mustafa Atici (Right), a Social Democrat MP for Basel City of Kurdish origin, is one of only a tiny handful of Swiss federal parliamentarians with "foreign" sounding names. Most have typically Swiss names like his colleague Matthias Aebischer (Left). Keystone / Alessandro Della Valle

People with foreign-sounding names are less likely to be elected in Switzerland, according to a study by the universities of Lucerne and Geneva.

The authors of the study analysed 600,000 ballots from the 2015 federal parliament elections. These contain detailed information on the number of times voters crossed a candidate off a party list or added them.

Voters in Switzerland receive ballot sheets on which candidate names are grouped in lists according to their party; the voter can then either select a list as a whole, or can chop and change across lists by adding or removing candidate names.

Based on an online lexicon listing all surnames in the municipalities, the survey’s authors differentiated between candidates with a “Swiss” name and those with names not typically Swiss (appearing in the lexicon after 1940 and which might give the impression of a migration background).

They found that voters more often removed candidates who did not have a typically Swiss name from party lists, a tendency more prevalent among right-wing voters. And when adding candidates to their chosen lists they more often added “Swiss” names.

Political parties can nevertheless take steps to counter this double discrimination, according to the report, including giving candidates with foreign-sounding names a more prominent place on their list.

As a University of Lucerne press releaseExternal link notes, people with migration backgrounds now make up a sizeable proportion of the Swiss population and many have acquired political rights, but they are much under-represented in parliament, especially at federal level. 

Most Read
Swiss Abroad

Most Discussed

News

Swiss Armed Forces have around 147,000 personnel

More

Number of Swiss armed forces exceeds specified limit

This content was published on The Swiss armed forces had an effective headcount of around 147,000 as of March 1, 2024. This exceeds the upper limit of 140,000 specified in the army organisation by 5%.

Read more: Number of Swiss armed forces exceeds specified limit
Two men charged by the MPC with money laundering

More

Two Swiss men charged with money laundering

This content was published on One million francs, 34 million euros and around 830 kilos of gold: this is the fortune that two Swiss nationals are accused of having moved across borders for at least four years.

Read more: Two Swiss men charged with money laundering
Richemont reports lower first-half results

More

Richemont reports lower first-half results

This content was published on Geneva-based luxury goods group Richemont reported a downturn in performance for the first half of its 2024/25 financial year. Both sales and profit declined.

Read more: Richemont reports lower first-half results

In compliance with the JTI standards

More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative

You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here . Please join us!

If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR

SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR