Word: parliament
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Above the sound of clinking coffee cups in a Zurich café, Andrew Katumba, 36, a Socialist candidate for parliament in Switzerland's national elections on Sunday, is outlining what he sees as the country's most urgent problem. "Switzerland is one of the strongest democracies in Europe, and yet one in five people cannot vote," says Katumba, whose father fled Uganda to Switzerland during Idi Amin's reign of terror, when Andrew was 3. "We are not integrating foreigners...
...heart of the controversy is the Swiss People's Party (SVP), the dominant force in the outgoing parliament. Last month it pasted thousands of posters across the country depicting three white sheep kicking out one black sheep from a paddock, with the slogan: "For more security." The poster became the parade example for furious accusations that the SVP was fomenting racism. Early this month, at a demonstration in the capital, Bern, hundreds of protesters pelted SVP members with rocks; police fired tear gas to disperse the crowd...
...waves of African and Balkan refugees during the past two decades are evidence enough of Switzerland's openness. "Integration is a success," he says. Yet it is largely because of its anti-immigrant stance that the party's ranks have soared; the SVP has nearly doubled its members of parliament since 1995, from 29 to 55 this year. That number could increase further after Sunday. Its opponents say the party has exploited raw Swiss fear of foreigners in order to expand its support. "This election is a competition between right and left," says Georg Kreis, president of the Federal Commission...
...that strategy might be working. More than 200,000 Swiss have signed a People's Party initiative - the first step towards debating a new law in parliament - to deport immigrants who commit violent crimes, even after they have served prison sentences, and to deport entire families of immigrants, if the accused is under 18 years...
...Hakim two weeks ago in Iran, the power grab plays out daily on the streets of southern cities such as Diwaniyah. "What's happening in this town is like a political duel over who's going to govern," said Ali al Mayali, a Sadrist member of the Iraqi Parliament. "It's a fight to control the street." Fueling that fight, Mayali said, is money and other support from neighboring countries. He would not point fingers. While U.S. officials point to the presence of Iranian-trained cells of both Badr and Sadr militias in Diwaniyah, residents talk also of Saudi Arabia...