Swiss vote on whether to join U.N.

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Posted 9:15AM on Sunday, March 3, 2002

GENEVA - Swiss voters were sharply divided Sunday in balloting on a proposal for their country to join the United Nations after more than five decades on the fringes. Early returns following the close of the polls at noon were so close that it was impossible to project the outcome of the government-backed referendum, state-owned Swiss Radio reported. Impassioned appeals from nationalists fueled opposition to the effort to join 189 countries in the United Nations. Switzerland has long been a dues-paying member of some U.N. agencies, including the World Health Organization and the International Labor Organization, but it is an observer state in the U.N. General Assembly. The European headquarters of the United Nations is in Geneva. Seventy-five percent of Swiss voters rejected U.N. membership in a similar referendum in 1986, backing opponents who said membership would let East-West polarization compromise Swiss neutrality. But the government believes the political climate has changed since the height of the Cold War, and that it is time for the 7 million Swiss to play a full role in the world. Opponents claim U.N. membership would force Switzerland to abandon its cherished sovereignty and submit to the political dictates of the five permanent U.N. Security Council members - the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China. Recent opinion polls predicted about 56 percent support for membership. Under the Swiss constitution, membership must be approved by a majority of those voting nationwide and a majority in at least 12 of the country's 23 cantons or states. The first four cantons to report - all of them relatively small - were all against U.N. membership. The government says U.N. membership should cost $42 million a year, compared with the $1.8 billion a year economic windfall from the presence of the U.N. operations in Geneva. Switzerland already provides logistical help to peacekeeping operations and invariably follows sanctions the United Nations imposes on other nations. The government - backed by Swiss industry, banks and interest groups - fears another rejection of full membership will make Switzerland an international outcast with a selfish and uncaring reputation. Opposition to U.N. membership was led by Christoph Blocher, a billionaire industrialist who says Switzerland is successful and wealthy precisely because it is different. ``We have our system of direct democracy, neutrality and federalism. We would lose that if we became a member of the United Nations,'' Blocher said in a recent debate. Blocher, a leader of the nationalist Swiss People's Party, swung a 1992 vote against Swiss membership in a loose European free trade pact, forcing the government to put aside plans to join the European Union.