Regional selections The
Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SRG SSR) held a national final to select its entry for the
Eurovision Song Contest 1986. The broadcaster had its divisions independently use their own selection methods, which would end with a final round featuring all of the songs selected by each regional division.
Swiss-French broadcaster (TSR) and
Swiss Italian broadcaster (TSI) internally selected their entries, while
Swiss German and
Romansh broadcaster (SF DRS) held a preliminary round to select its songs, with (SR DRS) holding a separate selection to enter a Romansh song to this preliminary round. Eligible songs were required to have been composed by songwriters from Switzerland or
Liechtenstein, and the deadline for the song registration was on 15 October. The winner is presumed to have been and Shefali Banerjee. Among the other participating groups were Alexi Nay and Marcus Hobi with their song "", Retuorn 85, Remedy, Prisma, and Hades.
1986 SF DRS held its preliminary round on 14 December 1985. About 80 songs were submitted, with nine songs being selected, to which the Romansh song was added, forming a lineup of ten total songs. Radio listeners of
DRS1 submitted their votes via phone call. Three songs advanced to the Swiss final, including the Romansh entry, becoming the first Romansh song to compete in a Swiss national final.
Italian internal selection On 6 November, TSI held an internal selection. A committee had selected the songs— "" by Paolo Monte, "" by Gruppa Pocafera, and "" by Simonetta. On 13 December 1985, it was first reported that the three selected songs were "" by Scarlet, "" by the group Test, and "" by
Daniela Simons. Nine songs competed in the national final, with three songs in French and Italian, two in German, and one in Romansh. Among the participants was
Véronique Müller, who had represented , and competed here as a member of Lily Lilas. The voting consisted of regional public votes which were sent to the three divisions of SRG SSR (SF DRS, TSR, TSI: German-Romansh, French, and Italian speaking, respectively), a press jury, and an "expert" jury. Applications for viewers to join the regional juries were sent via postcard until the week before the final, and 50 viewers from each canton were randomly selected to cast their votes to their broadcaster divisions via phone call. The winner was the song "", composed by
Atilla Şereftuğ with lyrics from
Nella Martinetti and performed by
Daniela Simons. ==At Eurovision==