BERN. The closest contest on the 27 September ballot has stopped being close. A second national survey puts the food security initiative on course for rejection by almost two to one, a collapse from the statistical dead heat recorded by the first poll of the campaign only two weeks ago.
The survey by the Leewas institute for the Tamedia titles and 20 Minuten, published on Wednesday, shows 65 per cent of voters intending to reject the initiative and 31 per cent in favour, with 4 per cent undecided. The first SRG trend poll by gfs.bern, conducted among more than 17,000 voters in the first half of August, had the camps tied at 49 per cent against and 47 per cent in favour.
The initiative, formally titled “For food security, through strengthening sustainable domestic production, more plant based foods and clean drinking water”, would write into the constitution a duty to promote domestic, largely plant based production and to protect drinking water. Its most contested clause sets a target of raising the country’s net food self sufficiency to at least 70 per cent.
Opponents have spent August turning that clause into the centre of the campaign. The Swiss Farmers’ Union, which is fighting the text despite its ecological framing, argues the 70 per cent target cannot be reached without a sharp drop in animal production. “It is about a state mandated menu plan, largely without animal products,” said Sandra Helfenstein, a spokeswoman for the union, adding that the campaign would now work to inform the remaining third of the electorate.
The party map explains the deficit. No major party recommends a Yes. Among party electorates, only Green voters back the text, with 69 per cent in favour in the Tamedia survey. Green Liberal sympathisers split almost evenly, and Social Democratic voters, whose party leadership once favoured a counter proposal, are drifting toward rejection. The Federal Council and parliament both recommend a No.
The first poll still offers the committee some clues about where its support lives. French speaking voters backed the idea by 57 per cent and Italian speakers by 53 per cent, while German speaking Switzerland leaned against at 53 per cent. Among the Swiss Abroad, 58 per cent said they would vote Yes, a gap gfs.bern attributes to the fact that the text’s weaknesses have barely been debated outside the country.
Pollsters urge the usual caution in both directions. Fabio Wasserfallen notes that a single survey can flatter a side, and that referendum campaigns routinely tighten in the final weeks. But the direction is no longer ambiguous: two institutes, two methods and two fieldwork periods now point the same way, and initiatives almost never gain ground once their details are being argued daily.
The timing could hardly be worse for the Yes committee. Postal ballots began arriving in households this week, which means the electorate is now voting at the exact moment the second poll lands. Campaign spending on the Yes side has concentrated on drinking water and soil fertility, the two arguments that tested best in the opening phase, but the money is dwarfed by the No camp’s coalition of farm, business and party organisations.
A defeat on 27 September would settle the constitutional question, not the underlying one. Agricultural policy returns to parliament in the autumn regardless, with the debates over direct payments, water protection and self sufficiency all unresolved. The initiative’s backers argue their campaign has already forced those questions up the agenda, the classic consolation of a losing committee.
Turnout on 27 September is currently expected at around 44 per cent, below the long term average of 47.4 per cent, and mobilisation is weakest precisely among the electorates of the parties that dominate the No camp. If the second poll is right, the food initiative will fall more heavily than the neutrality initiative sharing the same ballot, a reversal few predicted when the campaign opened.
What remains is the fortnight of television debates and doorstep arguments that decides the margin. A heavy defeat would read as a verdict on constitutionalising food policy. A narrow one would invite a second attempt in a revised form. The committees on both sides are already drafting those post vote statements; the polls suggest only one of them will need it.