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Nerves are on fire in Bern. The vote on the change of the small town of Moutier from the canton of Bern to the canton of Jura threatens to fail again. And this despite the fact that Moutier’s vote on Sunday is the safest vote in Swiss history. The ballots are provided with watermarks, the Federal Office of Justice (FOJ) supervises the entire voting process and the counting of the ballots. There will even be election observers on site.
Because what happened on June 18, 2017 must never be repeated: with a difference of only 137 votes, the citizens of Moutier decided to turn their backs on Bern and belong to the Jura in the future. But the joy of the Projurassier did not last long: the vote on the change of canton was declared invalid. Not only because the city government had not behaved neutrally, there were also fraudulent votes.
Hundreds of question marks
Therefore, the Berne government has decided to supervise Moutier’s electoral register. “The objective and purpose of this control is an impeccable electoral roll and the elimination of any doubt in relation to tourism of residence and fictitious vote,” he wrote a year ago. And the federal government helps with the FOJ as a neutral body to guarantee the veracity of the vote. Therefore, it is necessary to rule out that what happened in June four years ago would happen again.
But now it turns out: it repeats itself! With several hundred newcomers, the cantonal government of Bern doubts that they have actually decided to move their center of life to Moutier in the next few years. He wonders if they are only doing this for the vote. Either he doesn’t live in Moutier at all, but only reported this to the authorities.
The federal government and the canton confirm the letter
BLICK is aware of a confidential letter that the Berne governing council has sent to the federal government. It contains a list of around a hundred people who have clear indications that they only registered with Moutier to influence the vote. The Bern State Chancellery confirms the existence of the request letter: this is a response from the canton to a request from the department, government spokesman Christian Kräuchi said. This refers to the Karin Keller-Sutter Department of Justice (57), to which the FOJ belongs. But it is up to the federal government to provide information on this, Kräuchi said.
The canton of Jura was founded on January 1, 1979. The conflict between the French-speaking separatists and the canton of Bern, which flared up again after the Second World War, was supposed to come to an end, but it is not over yet.
The dispute goes back a long way: at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, areas of the Principality of Basel passed to the Canton of Bern. Since then, many inhabitants of the Jura regions of Bern have felt oppressed by the German-speaking majority in the canton.
The level of anger against the Bernese was demonstrated in January 1993: a 21-year-old separatist wanted to plant a bomb in the Bern town hall, but it exploded too early on the outskirts of the old town. The young man was assassinated. It was Bélier, a member of the militant separatist youth organization. Material for new attacks was found.
As a result, the cantons of Jura, Bern and the federal government entered into a dialogue to resolve the Jura conflict. But efforts are still being made to bring the Jura communities from Berne to the canton of Jura.
BJ’s chief information officer Ingrid Ryser is amazed that Bern is referring to the federal government. “After all, he classified said letter as ‘confidential.’ However, after the canton of Bern has confirmed the letter, I can do it too, ”he writes. However, since information on the content of the letter could affect the relationship between the Confederation and the cantons or between cantons, he was not allowed to say anything about the content.
Did you attract the unemployed with money?
According to information from VIEW, the suspected cases involve people from various cantons in western Switzerland. For example, the case of a 28-year-old who suddenly moved with his parents to Moutier. But since the man still has a job in another canton, one wonders why he suddenly wants to travel much longer to work.
But the unemployed and the very old retirees are also said to have moved to Moutier. Older people may want to help in their old age to make their long-awaited wish come true and for Moutier to come to the Jura. But job seekers pose a tricky question: Is there a funder who can get people with money to move and vote to change cantons? The authorities will have to investigate this question if as few votes as in 2017 are decisive for the change to Jura. And if it can be shown that dozens of people on Moutier’s list are wrongly registered on the electoral roll, the validity of the referendum is once again highly questionable.
One has learned something
Faced with the VIEW investigation, the mayor of Moutiers, Marcel Winistoerfer (63), announced that he was not commenting on issues related to the electoral roll. At least this time, Winistoerfer apparently does not want to be accused of lack of neutrality.
Published: 03/27/2021, 1:35 am
