Luxembourg--Luxembourg went to the polls Sunday in a landmark referendum on whether to give foreign nationals, who make up nearly half the population, full voting rights.
If the vote is carried, the tiny landlocked country of over half a million people will be the first in the European Union to grant foreign-born residents the right to vote in all the country's elections.
Prime Minister Xavier Bettel has billed the referendum as a chance to boost the democratic credentials of the wealthy duchy, which is nestled between Belgium, France and Germany.
A "Yes" vote would be "a yes to more democracy, a yes for the youth, a yes for diversity," he told AFP during campaigning Saturday in the capital, also called Luxembourg.
"There is no other European country where only 40 percent of the population elects its representatives," Bettel told journalists ahead of the referendum, in which 244,382 people are eligible to vote.
About 46 percent of the country's total population of 565,000 people are foreigners.
"No other country in the world, apart from Dubai, has our level of democratic deficit," he added.
The results are expected Sunday evening.
Bettel's Democratic Party, which is in coalition with the Socialists and Greens, proposes to enfranchise foreigners who have been residents in Luxembourg for over 10 years.
Around 35,000 mostly European migrants meet the criterium.
AFP
