Switzerland Votes on Citizenship Measures

Voters in Switzerland are voting on Sunday to decide whether the country's strict rules on citizenship should be relaxed. 
Being born in Switzerland does not guarantee citizenship and non-Swiss residents must typically wait 12 years before applying. 
The new proposal will allow third-generation immigrants to avoid some of that bureaucracy. It will directly affect those born in Switzerland, whose parents and grandparents also lived in the country permanently. 
The government as well as most lawmakers and political parties support the proposal that would allow the grandchildren of immigrants to skip several steps in the lengthy process of securing a Swiss passport. 
But the outcome of the referendum, the latest in Switzerland's direct democracy system, has been clouded by the far right nationalist Swiss People's Party (SVP), which put issues of national identity at the center of the debate. 
The current vetting procedure, aimed at ensuring that new citizens are well integrated, includes interviews carried out by town councils. Questions put to interviewees can include requests to name local cheeses or mountains. 
Those in favor of maintaining the current system also argue that the strict vetting rules make it superior to the more anonymous systems in neighboring France and Germany. 
Over the past 30 years, three previous attempts to relax the rules have been defeated. This time, opinion polls suggest the vote on Sunday will be close. Big cities back the idea, while more conservative rural areas oppose it. 

Source: QNA