Canton of Schaffhausen decides on rules for political financing
Published: Friday, Oct 25th 2024, 09:50
Zurück zu Live Feed
On November 24, Schaffhausen voters will decide on the further implementation of the transparency initiative. This demands the disclosure of the financing of election and voting campaigns.
Schaffhausen voters will decide in a variant vote how the transparency initiative should be implemented. They can choose between the relatively strict "implementation initiative" from the initiators of the original initiative and the more general counter-proposal from the conservative majority of the cantonal council.
The transparency initiative calls for extensive disclosure of the financing of election and referendum campaigns. Vested interests should also have to be disclosed.
Cantonal Council majority wanted to replace instead of implement
The implementation of the transparency initiative in Schaffhausen led to years of bickering between supporters and opponents of the initiative. The middle-class opponents of the initiative tried to use a trick to undermine the adopted transparency initiative.
To this end, they launched a new motion in the cantonal council entitled "More transparency, but with a sense of proportion". The aim was to replace the transparency initiative, which opponents considered difficult to implement, with a new, more general constitutional provision. This was to be put to the voters in an individual vote. If accepted, the detailed transparency provisions on political financing would have been drafted at legislative level.
However, the supporters of the transparency initiative lodged an appeal with the Federal Supreme Court and were vindicated. The court ruled that the enforcement initiative and the cantonal council bill must be voted on at the same time.
The enforcement initiative also contains certain weakening of the original transparency initiative. For example, votes and elections in municipalities with fewer than 3,000 inhabitants are to be exempt from public scrutiny.
Additional loan for security center
The second bill to be voted on by Schaffhausen voters on November 24 is less of a talking point: An additional loan of CHF 7 million is required for the expansion of the new police and security center. This was largely undisputed in the cantonal council. Voters had already approved the actual loan of almost 94 million francs in 2018.
©Keystone/SDA
German 
English 
French 
Spanish 
Arabic