GENEVA: Swiss voters on Sunday approved a measure to make it easier for third-generation immigrants to become citizens, rejecting views of right-wing nationalists who had stoked fears about granting nationality to more Muslims.

The “Yes” camp met the two criteria for a win, by securing a majority of total votes as well as a majority of Switzerland’s 26 cantons, the public broadcaster RTS and national news agency ATS said.

Fifty-nine per cent voted “Yes”, according to provisional figures given by the polling institute gfs.bern, and at least 14 cantons were in favour, according to official results.

Under it, the grandchildren of immigrants will be able to skip several steps in the lengthy process of securing a Swiss passport.

But the right-wing Swiss Peoples Party (SVP), the largest party in Switzerland’s parliament, fought against it by putting issues of Muslims and national identity at the centre of the debate.

Reacting to the defeat, SVP lawmaker Jean-Luc Addor said his side was “alone against everyone in this campaign”. “The problem of Islam, I’m afraid, it will catch up with us in a few years,” he told RTS.

According to a migration department study, less than 25,000 people in the country of about eight million currently qualify as third-generation immigrants, a definition meaning they have at least one grandparent who was born here or acquired Swiss residency.

Nearly 60 per cent of that group are Italians, followed by those with origins in the Balkans and Turkish nationals.

Debate on the proposal had nothing to do with religion at the outset, said Sophie Guignard of the Institute of Political Science at the University of Bern.

It was the SVP, a party repeatedly accused of demonising Islam, that focused on the risks of more Muslims becoming citizens and the possible “loss of Swiss values”, Guignard said.

Sunday’s referendum is one of four allowed each year for voting on subjects affecting federal as well as local laws and institutions.

Published in Dawn, February 13th, 2017