BY COLIN FREEMAN, TELEGRAPH.

A populist party is on course to trample over the politics of politiness in Sunday’s election, writes Colin Freeman in Zurich

As his two-legged party comrades like to point out, Zottel the goat represents everything that is good about the hard Right in Switzerland. The official mascot of the populist Swiss People’s Party, he is white in hue, bred of sturdy Alpine stock, and not afraid to dig his hooves in stubbornly on awkward matters.

Take the vexed issue of immigration, for example – a computer game on the party’s website features him butting busloads of black sheep out of the country, along with the odd bunch of Socialists.

Last Sunday, though, in the run-up to today’s parliamentary elections, Zottel fell victim to a propaganda stunt himself, when an anti-fascist group kidnapped him from his farm in a timber-framed village near Zurich, then shaved him and covered him in black paint, before leaving him tethered to a tree.

“He is still traumatised by the experience, as he wasn’t well treated by whoever took him away,” said his owner, People’s Party MP Ernst Schibli, as he stroked a still-trembling Zottel during an interview with The Sunday Telegraph last week. “But his kidnappers have made an error of judgement – Swiss people are very fond of goats, and this kind of cruelty will backfire.”

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In his party’s defence, Mr Blocher claims that the fuss over the anti-immigrant posters is simply a “knee jerk” reaction, and that the only foreigners he discriminates against are freeloaders and criminals. He does, though, want tougher laws for immigration in Switzerland – which, as a signatory to the “borderless” Schengen agreement since 2008, now has similar laws on freedom of movement of labour to its EU neighbours.

“Uncontrolled immigration has taken the power out of Swiss hands and must be limited,” railed Mr Blocher during the recent campaign. “There are also increasing numbers of asylum seekers, and more foreign criminals coming into the country. Freedom of movement of people has also brought in an extra 330,000 people over the last four years, putting a strain on housing, public transport and social security, just at a time when the economic situation is getting harder.”

True, a British visitor to Switzerland may struggle to detect the woes of which Mr Blocher speaks so passionately. Statistics from 2010 suggest that of Switzerland’s 7.8 million population, there are roughly 180,000 from the Balkans, 180,000 Asians and Turks, and 70,000 Africans. But migrant workers are confined largely to bigger cities like Zurich, and even there, what are described locally as “ghettos” show little of the poverty and crime that scar London’s Peckham or Manchester’s Moss Side. From the perspective of many immigrants, though, the SVP’s rhetoric is turning a perceived problem into a genuine one.

Sadaqat Ahmed, 45, is imam of Zurich’s Mahmud Mosque, one of just four among the 200 mosques nationwide that has a minaret. Locals questioned even the need for the mosque itself when it was first built back in 1962, saying there weren’t enough Muslims to justify it; but today Mr Ahmed prides himself on how it has become part of the community. Immediately after the 9-11 terror attacks, neighbours visited to reassure him that they bore no ill-will, and next week the mosque will host one of its regular open days so that the public can see life in there for themselves. Such mutual goodwill, he says, is being jeopardised by the SVP.

“Neither the mosque nor the minaret is considered a problem in this neighbourhood, although we wouldn’t consider having a call to prayer – firstly because most of the neighbours are Christian anyway, and secondly because we don’t want to test people’s sense of tolerance,” he said. “But there have been cases recently of Muslim women in headscarves being abused in the street, or called ‘terroristen’. I put that down to the SVP – they are creating fear in the nation.”

Nonetheless, Mr Blocher is confident that the SVP, which won 28.9 per cent of the vote in 2007, may break the 30 per cent barrier this time. That could allow it to claim not one, but two, of the seats on Switzerland’s seven-strong ministerial cabinet, which parliament has traditionally allocated between the centre-right Radicals, Christian Democrats and Socialists. While Switzerland’s government remains among the most decentralised in the world – decision-making power generally rests primarily with the 26 cantons – it would give the SVP agenda a prominent voice at national level.

(READ FULL ARTICLE HERE: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/switzerland/8843382/Swiss-fear-avalanche-from-the-Right.html)