«Vegan mandate» is «a barefaced lie»: what the case reveals about SVP ballot campaigns

On 27 September, Switzerland votes on the Food Initiative.

In an Instagram video, SVP National Councillor Ernst Wandfluh warned of an alleged vegan mandate that would make cervelat, fondue and fried eggs disappear. When asked about it, he himself qualified the claim: the vegan mandate line was an exaggeration. The initiative's author, Franziska Herren, countered that many opponents had never even read the text of the initiative and were instead telling barefaced lies. In fact, the initiative merely calls for greater promotion of plant-based nutrition, not for any compulsion in what people eat.

Anyone who has followed our reporting on hobby hunting over the years will recognise this pattern. We encountered exactly the same approach back in 2017 in the Zurich cantonal government's report on the cantonal hunting initiative «Game wardens instead of hunters», drawn up under the direction of the then SVP Buildings Director Markus Kägi, himself a hobby hunter. There, too, figures were used that did not stand up to scrutiny: allegedly 400’000 working hours performed by Zurich's hobby hunters, far above the figures of the umbrella organisation JagdSchweiz, as well as the claim that there was no safety problem, even though more than 1,500 people injured in hunting accidents were registered between 2011 and 2015 alone. You can find our full fact check on the report in our hunting dossier.

Two cases, almost a decade apart, one pattern: whoever stokes fear with a mandate that the text of the initiative does not even provide for is hoping that nobody will check. Why it is precisely in politics that arguments are so often made with exaggeration rather than with the actual wording is something we examined in our article A mystic on hunting and power categorised: those who themselves strive for power over others accordingly tend to rely on dominance rather than facts in political discourse as well.

It is also striking who is missing from the nutrition initiative: Pro Natura had originally supported the signature collection with a large majority of its council of delegates and has now become the only major environmental organisation to issue a No recommendation. Greenpeace Switzerland has left the vote free, and Four Paws does not wish to «comment actively on the initiative». Left behind are the initiator and countless volunteers who have invested a great deal of money, energy and time.

The Swiss Animal Protection STS is not entirely inactive in this regard: it currently supports two popular initiatives against imports of fur products produced through animal cruelty and of foie gras, and its statutes expressly name political and legal measures, «namely through initiatives, petitions and consultations», as means of achieving the association's purpose. This does, however, raise the question of why the umbrella organisation, strong in members and donations, does not launch its own nationwide initiative against the systematic exploitation in livestock farming – given that over 85 million animals are slaughtered in Switzerland every year – or visibly support an initiative such as the nutrition initiative during the campaign. The smaller organisation Animal Rights Switzerland, with a petition against the «explosion in slaughter figures», at least won 72 votes in the National Council in favour of adoption. Those who have the greatest resources and the widest reach, yet fail to take the initiative themselves where by far the largest number of animals is affected, should expect this question from their own grassroots.

Here, too, a pattern emerges: neither initiative was launched by the STS, but by the small Alliance Animale Suisse, backed by the Animal Trust foundation as well as the associations Animal Equité and Wildtierschutz Schweiz, and supported in the collection of signatures by around twenty further organisations such as Swissveg, Animal Rights Switzerland and the VgT. The STS, with its reach and its resources, only joined later as a supporter instead of leading the way itself.

It is telling that in both cases the same party led the escalation. That does not make the SVP the only party that exaggerates during a referendum campaign. But it does show: anyone who wants to reject a proposal should read the initiative text first, before misrepresenting it in public. The population has a right to an honest debate, whether the subject is nutrition or hobby hunting.