BERN. The campaigns for and against the two initiatives on the 27 September ballot have declared budgets totalling CHF 7.86 million, the Swiss Federal Audit Office said on Friday, offering the first full picture of the money behind the referendum season.
The neutrality initiative accounts for the bulk of it: CHF 5.51 million declared in total. The “Preserving Swiss Neutrality” committee has reported CHF 3.84 million spent in favour of the text, whose dove posters have blanketed the country for weeks. The opposing side has declared CHF 1.67 million, the vast majority from the cross-party “No to the Neutrality Initiative” committee.
The food security initiative is being fought on smaller budgets: CHF 2.35 million in all. Here the imbalance runs the other way. The “Clean Water for All” association campaigning for a Yes has reported CHF 720,000, against CHF 1.63 million declared by the initiative’s opponents, a coalition anchored by farm and business organisations.
The audit office publishes the figures under the transparency rules that require committees to declare their campaign funding, but it added its customary caveat: the political actors themselves are responsible for the accuracy of what they report. The numbers are declarations, not audited accounts.
Read against the polls, the figures make uncomfortable reading for both Yes camps. The neutrality side is outspending its opponents by more than two to one, yet the second survey of the campaign put rejection at 62 per cent. Money buys posters, it turns out, and posters alone have not moved a number that Kremlin praise has helped fix in place.
The food initiative’s Yes committee faces the opposite problem: its CHF 720,000 is being spent against a No side with more than double the funds, at the very moment the second poll showed support collapsing to 35 per cent. Campaign veterans note that late money matters most in the final fortnight, which has now begun.
The declarations also land in the middle of a longer argument about money in Swiss votes. Transparency rules tightened in recent years oblige committees to disclose donors and budgets, but enforcement remains light-touch by design, and the audit office’s Friday note is a reminder of how much of the system still runs on trust.
Four weeks of campaigning remain. The committees’ final spending, on television debates, newspaper wraps and the last poster wave, will appear in the post-vote accounts. What is already clear is the shape of the contest: nearly eight million francs, two initiatives, and an electorate that so far looks expensive to persuade.