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The Swiss have finished voting on funding for the Gripen IIs that the Government want to buy to replace the 30 year old F5 Tiger fleet.

A coalition of Socialists and Greens collected enough signatures to force a vote (100000) and the vote closed at lunchtime.

Cantons are now reporting results and the first prognosis based on exit polls is a narrow defeat for the Gripens.

So far 11 cantons have reported out of 26, 8 say yes and 3 no. For a Yes to be valid it needs a majority of both the popular vote and the cantons.

Up to date status is here http://www.teletext.ch/SRF1/113-00.html

Current popular vote status is 418505 yes, 395809 no. Generally cities seem to be voting no while the more conservative rural and suburban areas are voting yes. My city rejected the Gripens by almost 2-1.

Now 10.5 yes, 4.5 no but it is now 536,000 yes and 581,000 no.

To be honest it's going the way I expected it. Luzern, Uri, Schwyz, Oberwalden, Niederwalden and Zug have gone heavily yes. These are all Kantons in the central part of the country, mostly round the Vierwaldstattersee. Very rural and the heartland of the SVP. Luzern is a bit closer but that is because of Luzern itself which voted no.

The Appenzells said yes as did Graubunden and Aargau. Appenzells are again fairly rural and conservative as is Graubunden. Aargau is split between the rural part of the Kanton which has voted yes and the industrial east of the Kanton by the Zürich suburbs which voted no.

Basel Land, Schaffhausen, Fribourg, Jura and Geneva have voted no.. The last 3 are Kantons in the French part of the country are are noticeably to the left of the German speaking majority. The size of the no vote in the French Kantons is quite high.

The credit for the Gripens has been voted down by 1,542,000 to 1,345,000.

The government can still buy the Gripens but need to find some other way to finance them.

Is there a proposed alternative aircraft or is it just a straight yay or nay to Gripens? They're not exactly cheap!

JLAmber wrote:Is there a proposed alternative aircraft or is it just a straight yay or nay to Gripens? They're not exactly cheap!

It actually said Gripens on the ballot. They had a competition between the Gripen, Eurofighter and Rafale at Emmen and a couple of other airfields a few years ago where the decision was taken. It's for the funding, which ran into opposition because Armasuisse wanted to blag the money from the transport infrastructure budget.

https://www.ch.ch/de/fonds-zur-beschaff ... gs-gripen/

54 veraltete Kampfflugzeuge F-5 Tiger sollen durch 22 moderne Gripen-Kampfflugzeuge ersetzt werden. Die Beschaffung soll durch einen Fonds finanziert werden. Gegen die Vorlage wurde das Referendum ergriffen.

(German required or Google Translate if you want a laugh)

I can see both sides to this. I understand the need for necessity only but I also understand that the Gripens aren't as capable as the Hornets, but more capable than the F5's.

I do like the idea of a referendum tho. I would have definitely voted yes on our Raptors.