Luxembourg votes on giving foreigners full voting rights

 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, AFP reports.

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.

   'Political apartheid' 

Bettel has already been leading the charge for change in Luxembourg after he became the first EU leader to enter into a same-sex union when he married his gay partner last month.

"What matters is that we carry on with integration in this country and that we continue to live together and respect one another," Bettel said.

The referendum has deeply divided Luxembourgers, many of whom fear losing even more influence to foreigners who already play a vital role in the economy.

On her way out of a polling station in the capital, 55-year-old Nicole said she voted "No" because she believes the voting question should be solved by giving more foreigners Luxembourg citizenship.

"I think people should become Luxembourgers," said Nicole, a municipal worker married to a Frenchman.

Another voter, a civil servant named Claude, disagreed saying: "We must enlarge the constituency and put an end to the political apartheid against foreigners."

A victory for the "Yes" camp would also shake up the political landscape because foreign nationals tend to be younger than their Luxembourgish counterparts and more likely to work in the private sector.

After the Portuguese, who account for 16.4 percent of the population, the Grand Duchy is made up of French nationals (seven percent), Italians (3.5 percent), Belgians (3.3 percent) and Germans (2.3 percent).

Non-European foreigners -- such as Cape Verdians, North Americans and Chinese -- account for seven percent of the population.

Former prime minister Jean-Claude Juncker's Christian Social People's party (CSV) called for a "No" vote, while the business community and civil society groups backed the "Yes" campaign.

Voters are also being asked on Sunday whether to lower the voting age to 16 and limit ministerial mandates to 10 consecutive years.