Forged signatures How badly is our democracy damaged now, Mr. Hermann?

A fraud scandal is shaking Switzerland: signatures for initiatives have been forged on a grand scale. Has trust in Swiss democracy been permanently damaged? A political expert assesses the situation.

A political scandal is currently rocking Switzerland. The French-speaking Swiss company Incop has forged signatures for initiatives. Political scientist Michael Hermann is pleased that the fraud has been uncovered, but he is not surprised.

"Basically, I'm not surprised at all. It was only a matter of time before fraud like this would happen," he says. People are known to spend money on companies that supply signatures. "Often it's not established companies that could lose a reputation, but companies without a professional structure that simply want to make money," says Hermann. The system of obtaining signatures encourages organizations to cheat, as checks are carried out but are difficult to implement. Forging signatures is a simple matter.

"Politicians must act now"

The problem is the way in which signature forms are checked. "It's easier to collect signatures nowadays because everything is digitalized. But the signatures are still written by hand and some of them can't really be deciphered," explains Hermann. All the more reason to negotiate a solution now.

"Politicians must act now and find a regulation to prevent such abuses," says Hermann. On the one hand, a ban could be imposed and the collection of signatures could no longer be financially supported. "On the other hand, there is also talk of imposing better and stricter regulations. For example, such organizations could be better controlled or even audited in future."

For Hermann, one thing is clear: the Swiss political system is protected. The political scientist denies the question of whether fraud has influenced votes or even the implementation of new laws. "Thanks to direct democracy, the people were able to express their own opinion in every vote. That's why it doesn't matter whether the initiative was put to the people at all or not," explains Hermann.

What happened?

Noémie Roten is Co-President of the Service Citoyen Initiative. She noticed the fraud, as Tamedia research shows. Franck Tessemo is the owner of the company Incop and worked together with Roten. The deal was "that Incop would deliver 10,000 signatures within a month at a price of CHF 4.50 per signature", as Tamed newspapers write. This is initially a favorable price, as Incop promised to deliver only valid signatures. By comparison, the initiators of the nuclear power plant initiative paid CHF 7.50 per signature, i.e. over CHF 75,000, to obtain signatures. There too, false signatures were cheated onto the signature sheet.

Of 1159 signatures from Lausanne, 423 were invalid. In Fribourg, 61 out of 167 were invalid and in Coppet 12 out of 13. Such a high rate of invalid signatures is striking. Further research shows that signatures were forged for dozens of initiatives.