Swiss lawmakers have approved a government-backed proposal to phase out the use of nuclear power.

A majority of parliamentarians in Switzerland's lower house voted in favor of the plan to shut down the country's five nuclear power reactors in the medium term.

Nuclear power plant in Goesgen-Daeniken, Switzerland: set to be decommissioned. (Markus Stuecklin/Keystone/AP) The ballot passed the National Council on Wednesday with 101 votes in favor, 54 against and 30 abstentions. It had the support of all parties except the pro-business Liberal Democrats and the nationalist Swiss People's Party.

Efforts to abandon nuclear power in Switzerland were boosted following the incident at Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant on March 11.

Switzerland is following the lead of Germany, which announced on May 30 a plan to phase out nuclear power generation by 2022 and leave eight suspended plants — closed since the Japanese disaster — shut for good.

Nuclear reactors supplied 23 per cent of German power last year, according to reports, and more than double the share of renewable sources to 35 per cent by 2020.

Opinion polls showed a majority of Swiss favored shutting down the Alpine nation's nuclear plants. Switzerland holds national parliamentary elections Oct. 23.