Swiss referendums May 2009

Swiss voters dealt with two referendums yesterday, both of which were approved on minimal turnout (38%).

Vote 541 was a popular initiative for alternative (or complementary medicine): Zukunft mit Komplementärmedizin

Yes 67%
No 33%

Below is a map of the vote. It sure looks like Swiss Francophones love alternative medicine, ultra-conservatives in Schwyz  not so much.

Vote 542 was the approval of the introduction of biometric passports.

Yes 50.1%
No 49.9%

I tried hard to find something in this map ressembling a political pattern, but I haven’t found anything that explains the alternative medicine-lovers in Geneva and Jura voting the same way as the rural ultra-conservatives in Schwyz and Uri. The best I can give is that low turnout creates weird results.

Lithuania 2009

Lithuania elected its relatively ceremonial President yesterday in an election which was never really disputed. European Commissioner Dalia Grybauskaitė, an independent, was easily elected to the Presidency by the first round with over 69% of the votes. Turnout was only 51.71%

Dalia Grybauskaitė (Ind) 69.08%
Algirdas Butkevičius (Social Democrat) 11.83%
Valentinas Mazuronis (Order and Justice) 6.16%
Waldemar Tomaszewski (Polish) 4.74%
Kazimira Prunskienė (Peasant Popular Union) 3.91%
Loreta Graužinienė (Labour) 3.61%
Česlovas Jezerskas (Ind) 0.6%

Grybauskaitė’s role is ceremonial, but she was popular due to her status as an “outsider” in the local political scene in the country, which has seen a number of corruption scandals.