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  3. If you ask a Swiss person who their president is, they likely won’t be able to tell you. And it’s not because they are political

If you ask a Swiss person who their president is, they likely won’t be able to tell you. And it’s not because they are political

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问题     If you ask a Swiss person who their president is, they likely won’t be able to tell you. And it’s not because they are politically apathetic or uninformed. In Switzerland, citizens don’t vote for their president.
    In this small alpine country, citizens elect a new Parliament every four years, and the Parliament chooses a group of seven councilors from different parties. They are the head of state. The presidency rotates among the members every year. But the keystone of Swiss democracy is the regular use of refer-endums, in which citizens vote on everything from their town’s new sports center to the country’s immigration policy.
    As Michael Bechtel, professor of political science at the University of St. Gallen, explains, in a direct democracy there is a stronger incentive for political elites to take into account citizen preferences when making choices. It might sound like a panacea for Occupy Wall Street types, but this is actually a complex system with both advantages and disadvantages.
    Voting in Switzerland is easy. With no need to register, every citizen receives a ballot for each vote, which can be returned by mail.
    And decisions aren’t final. If a law has already been passed, people can still overturn it by getting 50,000 signatures in 100 days. The bill then has to be voted on by the public. And if that wasn’t enough, Swiss citizens can also suggest their own laws by "popular initiative. " If 100,000 people ask for a change in the constitution, the Parliament is obligated to discuss it and submit the proposal to a popular vote.
    To be sure, there are pitfalls. Popular votes can lead to a tyranny of the majority, making it easy to discriminate against small groups. In 2009, a law was passed with 57 percent of the votes in favor of banning the construction of mosque towers even if the government emphatically opposed the ban. This system also slows down the law-making process and makes it more difficult to get on the same page with international rulings like those of the European Union.
    Could other nations benefit from direct democracy? Maybe, but the preconditions are high. Besides being a well-educated electorate with basic rights, they must be able to see past party lines. "It comes down to how much you trust your fellow citizens," says Klaus Dingwerth, political scientist and fellow at the Global Public Policy Institute.
According to the passage, popular vote______.
选项 A、is part of direct democracy in Switzerland
B、can lead to tyranny against small groups
C、is not welcomed by Swiss government
D、cannot be replicated in other nations
答案B
解析 推理题。根据题干定位到第六段第二句：Popular votes can lead to a tyranny of the ma-jority，making it easy to discriminate against small groups．“全民公投会导致多数群体独裁暴政，并易引发歧视少数群体的事件。”多数人的暴政意味着少数要服从多数，所以[B]选项正确。[A]选项的说法在原文中并未体现，可排除。根据政府对清真寺塔事件的态度可知，政府对“全民公投”的态度并不完全赞同，所以[C]选项错误，可排除。由第七段可知，瑞士的直接民主制度是可以在其他国家施行的，只不过前提条件很苛刻，所以[D]选项错误，可排除。
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