Since being back in Zürich after a winter break, I’ve noticed that the political parties have stepped up their campaigning on both sides on the upcoming Swiss-EU freedom of movement bilateral treaty referendum. I discussed the issues surrounding the vote in a prior post.

I didn’t expect the SVP, Switzerland’s resident crazy right-wing party, to go at it with such gusto, but they have. In fact, they’re making the same mistake as they made a couple of years ago with the “Sicherheit schaffen” black sheep poster, using out-and-out racism and xenophobia to attempt to sway the tide in their favour.

Here’s the poster they’ve been sticking up around the place:

© 2008 Bunch of assholes. Caption reads "Free identity cards/passports for all? No."

Nice and friendly, eh? The racism is especially barbed since the vote arose specifically because of the SVP’s rejection of the policy of extending the same privileges they currently give to other EU citizens to Bulgarians and Romanians.

On the other hand, here is the totally awesome Liberal poster (sorry the photo’s a bit crap – I was in a hurry):

Liberal Party poster for the Switzerland-EU freedom of movement agreement referendum. Caption reads "Don't destroy our bilateral route! YES to jobs! YES to the bilateral agreement"

I like the general Wile-E-Coyote vibe of it, with the dastardly and suicidal SVP nutters with hammers. The nutter on the left bears a reasonable resemblance to Christoph Blocher, SVP leader.

But what I particularly like is that it invokes just about every Swiss stereotype with glee: the mountains, the railway, fact that the train is painted red and has a huge cross on the front. That the train’s cargo is a bar of chocolate, a slice of cheese and a watch is total genius, and I just know that it was done almost without the slightest hint of irony.

Brilliant.