Swiss votes on September 22: pension reform looks unlikely

Bit of a stretch: the pension reform looks set to fail. Keystone / Ti-Press

With less than two weeks to go, most Swiss voters look set to reject a referendum on reforming occupational pensions, according to the second and final poll. The other issue at stake, the biodiversity initiative, is also heading for failure, despite support from the Swiss Abroad.

The occupational pension reform could well be rejected at the ballot box on September 22, according to the second poll carried out by the gfs.bern research institute on behalf of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC), SWI swissinfo.ch’s parent company.

It found that 51% of the electorate is now opposed to the government and parliament plan to consolidate the second pillar of the Swiss pension system. Support for its opponents has risen by 12 percentage points in the space of a month; 42% of those polled still approve of the reform, while 7% are undecided. The pattern is virtually the same for the Swiss Abroad.

Political orientation and confidence in the government appear to be the most decisive factors in explaining people’s voting intentions.

People close to the left-wing Green Party, the Social Democratic Party and those who do not sympathise with any party are clearly opposed to the reform. It is still supported by a majority of the electorate of the centre-right Radical-Liberal Party, the Centre Party and the centrist Liberal Green Party. The right-wing Swiss People’s Party appears divided.

“The trend towards a no vote is evident across all political groupings,” concludes gfs.bern political scientist Martina Mousson. 

Nonetheless, a large proportion of those polled believe that action is needed, with 85% thinking that the occupational pension provision of part-time workers – particularly women – should be improved. However, according to gfs.bern, the project doesn’t seem to meet these expectations, since voters aren’t motivated to support it.

The poll

For the second survey ahead of the federal votes on September 22, gfs.bern polled 13,979 voters between August 26 and September 4. The statistical margin of error is +/-2.8 percentage points.

The camp opposed to the reform of the second pillar is using shock tactics. The project is basically a scam, they say, because people with jobs will pay higher contributions only to receive lower pensions later on. Some 55% of those questioned agreed with this statement.

“It’s by far the most influential argument in the decision to vote,” Mousson says.

The evolution of opinion on this reform is unusual. Usually, when it comes to a project emanating from the authorities, the electorate tends to align itself with the position of the government and parliament, gfs.bern points out.

In this case, the miscalculation by the Federal Social Insurance Office in forecasting expenditure on old-age and survivors’ insurance undoubtedly helped the project’s opponents. As a reminder, this means that the system is doing better than expected.

“This has had an influence on voting intentions, especially as the issue has subsequently featured prominently in the media. However, the impact is difficult to quantify,” Mousson says.

The gfs.bern institute notes that “driven by the media, a climate of anxiety about the figures and the repercussions of the reform has set in”. The complexity of the project and the difficulty of understanding its impact on the situation of each individual also play against the subject, point out the gfs.bern political scientists.

>> To understand what is at stake in the reform of the occupational pensions:

Towards a no vote on biodiversity

The biodiversity initiative, on the other hand, has followed the normal pattern of opinion-forming for this type of issue. The no vote has strengthened over the course of the campaign, and the text will probably end up being rejected on September 22, according to the SBC poll.

Some 51% of the electorate, or 8 percentage points more than in the first opinion poll, are against the initiative, which would like to reserve more resources and space for biodiversity; 46% are in favour and 3% are undecided.

The voting intentions of the Swiss Abroad differ here from those of their compatriots at home: 56% of those living abroad support the project, 43% are opposed and 1% have not yet made up their minds.

“We’ve already seen this difference in votes on environmental issues,” Mousson says, pointing to two factors: the diaspora tends to be more politically left-wing and, as it doesn’t pay tax in Switzerland, doesn’t have to bear the costs of implementing the text.

According to the survey, voters’ political affinities are decisive in their decision to vote on this issue. On the left of the political spectrum, support for the initiative continues to be strong, as it is within the centrist Liberal Green Party. The electorate of the other political groupings is largely opposed to the initiative.

The biodiversity initiative also divides rural and urban areas: 63% of people living in the countryside are opposed to it, while the majority of people living in large cities are in favour.

“This is a typical divide for this type of issue,” says gfs.bern political scientist Lukas Golder. He points out, however, that the gap is less wide and the debate less emotional than during the votes on the two anti-pesticide initiatives in 2021, whose campaign was marked by death threats, insults and posters being vandalised or set on fire.

Edited by Samuel Jaberg. Translated from French by DeepL/ts