Polls confirm No trend to the No Billag initiative
The No Billag initiative would currently be clearly rejected by the electorate. In a survey by the GFS Bern research institute, 60 percent would put a No in the ballot box. In another survey by Marketagent.com, the rejection rate is only 51.4 percent.
38 percent of those who intend to vote would accept the initiative, according to the gfs.bern survey conducted on behalf of SRG. However, these figures do not match the perception of the survey participants: They assumed that the initiative would only be rejected by a razor-thin margin.
Opinions are, however, already fairly well established - 74 percent expressed a firm opinion (48 percent said no, 26 percent yes). According to gfs, the formation of opinion is thus at an above-average stage. This limits the possibilities for a change of opinion in the coming weeks, but changes are not impossible.
The polarization of party politics can be seen in the poll results: The further to the right politically, the higher the approval of the initiative, according to the report. However, it is only in the SVP environment that the initiative has majority support. It is among the SVP that sympathy is highest; Green supporters account for the largest share of rejection.
Demographically, the initiative would be more likely to be rejected in Latin Switzerland, by the over-30s and by people with middle incomes. The majority of 18 to 30-year-olds expressed support for the initiative.
According to the survey, there are two majority arguments for rejection: the fees for the companies and the fact that the SRG has to save money. The supporters, meanwhile, can come up with four majority-capable messages, such as the fear of dependence on private financiers or the quality of the media system, which could not be maintained in the event of an acceptance.
In the first gfs trend survey on the March 4 vote, 1201 representatively selected voters were questioned between January 8 and 18.
Second poll shows narrow No trend
The third survey by the market research institute Marketagent.com also shows a "no" trend, albeit a narrow one. If the vote were held next weekend, 51.4 percent of those willing to vote would be against the initiative, the institute reported on Thursday. 40.9 percent would support it, 7.7 percent were still undecided.
In the online survey, there is no difference between German-speaking and French-speaking Switzerland. The greatest rejection is among 66- to 75-year-olds, at 65.1 percent. In this survey, moreover, the initiative does not even achieve a majority among 18- to 29-year-olds: 49.3 percent reject it, while 45.1 percent approve.
The two previous waves of the marketagent survey from the end of last year had still shown approval for the initiative. For the third survey, the institute conducted online interviews between January 12 and 22 with 1233 Swiss citizens aged 18 to 75 who were eligible to vote. Of these, 800 said they intended to take part in the vote on March 4. (SDA)
