Official results showed that 51.2 percent of voters and a majority of cantons supported the controversial proposal.
READ MORE: Swiss voters narrowly back controversial ‘burqa ban’
What are the reactions to the ban?
Proponents of the initiative expressed their satisfaction with how the vote turned out.
“We are glad, we don’t want radical Islam in our country at all”, said Marco Chiesa, head of the right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP), which spearheaded the vote.
On its website, the party said that the ban on concealing one’s face also “ensures greater security, because this measure also explicitly targets hooligans and leftist thugs who, concealed by hoods, commit acts of violence and vandalism”.
However those who opposed this measure are critical of the vote outcome.
“The question should not have been asked at the polls. This vote was a pretext to add fuel to the fire”, said Islamologist Stéphane Lathion.
The Swiss chapter of Amnesty International noted that the new measure “discriminates against a particular religious community, and fuels division and fears”.
Roger Nordmann, head of the Socialist lawmakers in parliament, said that some people voted for the ban for “feminist reasons” — that is, to free Muslim women from being forced to cover their face.
However, “no problem has been solved and women’s rights have not progressed either,” he said.
Was the vote driven by Islamophobia?
While the post-referendum survey conducted among the Swiss voters by Tarmedia showed that 91 percent of SVP members voted to accept the initiative, some members of centrist and leftist parties also said ‘yes’ – but for different reasons.
More than half of supporters of centrist parties and a fifth of those belonging to the Green and Social Democratic Party also slipped a “yes” in the ballot box.
But unlike the SVP supporters, these liberal voters backed the initiative for feminist reasons as well as secular ones — to exclude religious symbols from public life.
What happens now?
The Federal Council, which is the executive branch of the government, will submit proposals to parliament on how to implement this initiative.
However, this will not happen overnight: authorities have two years to draw up detailed legislation.
What is the likely impact of this new measure?
It will certainly stimulate political debate, but the actual effect is likely going to be limited.
There are less than 100 women who wear full face veils in Switzerland, so the impact will not be widespread.
In Ticino, where burqa ban has been in effect since 2016, fines of up to 10,000 francs can be imposed for breaking this law. However, none have been given out so far.
The ban may, however, have a negative effect on Switzerland’s tourism sector, which has already suffered multi-billion-franc losses in the past year due to the pandemic.
Switzerland “will lose these well-off guests from the Gulf countries”, according to Barbara Gisi, director of the Swiss Tourism Federation.
In 2019, nearly 864,000 people from these states visited Switzerland.
In Ticino, burqa ban has had an impact on tourism, Gisi said. The canton has lost 30 percent of visitors from the Gulf countries after the law went into effect.
The Federation will try “through awareness-raising actions to welcome as many socially more progressive tourists as possible from these states”, Gisi added.
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