Exit polls suggest that Swiss voters have backed far-right calls to ban the building of minarets by 57%, according to the country's media.

Partial results from the Sunday poll indicate that the German-speaking region of Lucerne accepted the ban, while French-speaking areas Geneva and Vaud voted against.

The Swiss had swung massively in recent days, from 37% support in pre-vote polls to 59% in the actual voting, according to projections aired by state-owned television DRS.

The projection also forecasts more than half the country's 26 regions have approved the ban.

This means it will become a constitutional amendment, Claude Longchamp, leader of the widely respected gfs.bern polling institute, said.

The Swiss government had urged people to vote against the ban, arguing it would cause "incomprehension overseas and harm Switzerland's image".

Switzerland's biggest party, the Swiss People's Party (SVP), had claimed that the minarets attached to mosques were symbols of militant Islam.

Currently, there are four minarets in existence in the country, with up to 160 mosques and cultural centers. The construction of another two minarets was being planned.

The anti-immigration SVP party believed the spires from where followers of Islam are called to prayer demonstrate a "political-religious claim to power".

It succeeded in forcing a referendum on whether or not minarets should be banned after collecting 100 000 signatures from eligible voters within 18 months.

At the centre of the campaign was a controversial poster showing a woman in a burqa with missile-shaped minarets behind her.

The Muslim population of Switzerland numbers some 400 000 - about 5% of the Swiss total, with the majority having arrived from the Balkans region and Turkey.

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