Re: Swiss elections and referenda - New Federal Councilor(s) election 7 December

[parochial boy]

It was a very conservative country until very recently. Arguably, the trauma of losing the 1959 referendum on women's suffrage is why other social changes since then have been slow. Parliament is very nervous about passing those sorts of laws out of fear of losing an eventual referendum.

In fairness, even if said referendum had passed 1959 is an extremely late date for women's suffrage to have been legalized.

Why was Switzerland so slow on the issue?

Well the defensive argument that gets made here is that it was principally down to the tradition of direct democracy. Swtzerland was (afaik) the only country where in order to give women the vote, you required a majority of men to accept to give women the vote, so who knows if other countries would have introduced women's suffrage as early as they did had they had the same constitutional provision. This kind of gets backed up by looking at the fact that various cantonal level attempts to introduce votes for women failedin the 1940s and 50s, and then support for women's suffrage jumped from 33% to 66% in just 12 years between 1959 and 1971, which shows quite how dramatic the social transformations of the 60s were in Switzerland as with the rest of Europe.

Of course, I don't really buy this as an explanation. As much as anything else it probably comes down to reasons I have touched on before. Switzerland, before the 60s was a very conservative country. It's really only just caught up with the rest of the continent over the last decade, thanks to urbanisation and French Switzerland. Some of the rural areas are still very conservative, even compared to rural areas elsewhere.

This comes down to things like the fact it was a rural country (over 60% of the population lived in rural areas in 1945, and one in four worked in agriculture), with no big cities, that was religious and had very traditional social norms. Then there is the factor of a natural geography that tends to limit contact with the outside world (especially back then when far more people lived either in the mountains or in hillyback country regions in the plateau), which tends to limit social progress, and generate a degree of suspicion of radical new ideas. Add to that the tradition of municipal autonomy, that helped foster a general suspicion of change slash a suspicion of any "radical" and potentially risky new ideas.

Add to that, having stayed out of the two world wars meant that there also wasn't as much social disruption caused by the wars. So no women going to work in factories or participating in the war efforts which led to the revalorisation of women's roles in society that happened elsewhere in Europe. Ie, it's not that much of a coincidence that the UK, France and Italy all gave women the right to vote more or less immediately after the end of either World War One or Two.

[parochial boy]

Some boring party updates, woo!

the PDC and PBD are continuing their route to a merger, the memberships of both parties seemingly in favour to the merger, and the PDC's seemingly willing to drop the "Christian" label in order to expand their electorate. Although on that note, a little bit of a kerfuffle emerging between the more convservative branches in the rural (Catholic) heartlands and the and the liberal urban ones. The former, unsurprisingly, much more reluctant to drop "Christian" from the party name. Shades of the recent intra-party split over gay marriage.

In the Green leadership, cough, "race" Zürich Nationalrat Balthasar Glättli is getting elected unopposed, and should keep the party on the same solid left-left message.

In the Socialist race, Mathias Reynard is on the verge of pulling out, preferring to stand for election to the Valais Conseil d'État next year, to try and preserve the seat being vacated by the retiring PS incumbent Esther Waeber-Kalbermatten. This would seem to open the way to the Cédric Wermuth-Mattea Meyer dual ticket, the two being solid left wingers (Wermuth is an ex-Juso president) and would keep the party on the same sold-left contestatary course as under Levrat.

The UDC race has run into its own issues as, like the other two parties, no-one appers to actually want the job, big names like Blocher daughter and Thomas Aeschi having turned down the role. So far standing are Albert Heer (elected in third place on the ZH list, so, you know, eh...), a no name Nationalrat who is there to represent the hardline "Zürich wing". Opposing him is Andreas Glarner of Aargau (but originally from Glarus as the name would imply). A man prone to delightful "controversies" including the doxing of a schoolteacher who (perfectly legally) allowed Muslim school student to stay at home to celebrate Eid.

Of course, party presidencies aren't the same game in Switzerland as elsewhere. The president isn't aiming to form a government at any point, and even making the step to the Federal Council is relatively infrequent. None of the current 7 have led their parties at any point for instance.

However, there still is some potential trouble brewing. Currently Christian Levrat is the only non-German speaking leader of any of the major parties. With him on the way out, we look set to not only have all 6 major parties being led by Swiss-Germans, but the 5 largest parties all being led by people from the greater Zürich area. Heer, Glättli and Meyer are from the canton itself, while Wermuth and Glarner are from the Zürich commuter land that is canton Aargau. Add to that, Petra Gössi (PLR) is from Schwyz and and Gerhard Pfister (PDC) from Zug, both of which form part of the Zürich metro area.

This isn't really the done thing as balancing the various demographic factors is always a bit of a game in the political arena, with regions fearing not being represented or thought about in the decision making press. It's not just a linguistic thing either, hence the bit about greater Zürich being relevant as it leaves the Bern and Basel areas, Ostschweiz and the peripheral cantons feeling left out just as much as the Italians and Romands.

[parochial boy]

Was listening to a podcast about "Zurich brannt" in the late 80s...what was the deal with that and did any parties like the Greens essentially emerge from it?

Rote Fabrik and l'Usine are two of the coolest things in Switzerland, thankfully l'Usine managed to surive, but that's a digression. I don't know much about Züri brännt beyond whatever legends I've heard - but there's quite a long tradition of that kind of Autogestionnaire type activism that grew up out of it. So you have the likes of l'Usine or the old Rhino squat in Geneva; and Rote Fabrik but also the likes of Dynamo or the Park Platz collective where the old heroin hangout in Letten used to be. These are all quite surprisingly visible and tolerated/encouraged alternative areas that you wouldn't really expect from, well, Switzerland. Zürich's noticeably better than Geneva too.

On that note, there is a link from Züri brännt to the heroin crisis and to the eventual liberal drug laws that we have today.

The Greens didn't emerge out of that movement though. They mostly emerged out of anti-nuclear movements, and, especially, a number of campaigns against motorway construction in the 60s-80s. So a lot of their earlier development was in places like Neuchâtel, Vaud, Solothurn or Baselland, where there were movements that developed around those issues. After that, in the 1980s there was a rapprochement between them and POCH, who were a Swiss-German far left outfit that developed out of the May 68 movements which more or less led to the creation of the Greens as we know them today - completed by the liberal split 15 odd years ago.

[parochial boy]

First poll for the vote on limiting mass migration out courtesy of GFS.Bern/Interpharma/SRG today, and it's... an utter disaster for the UDC. Just 29% indicating that they will vote Yes to the initiative, with 69% against.

Considering that support usually starts high and then drops away this is quite a stumble at the starting gates. Though the old story rings true, the UDC still have a reputation for running surprising, effective campaigns that defy usual expections; except, there last shot "against foreign judges" was a flop too. Ending up with only 33% support. Interesting times.

The poll also had support for the framework agreement running at 63% for 31% against, details here. Despite an increased level of scepticism towards the bilaterals in the post (almost post) coron world - which NZZ have summarised here

[parochial boy]

The Fors centre released their big study of the 2019 electorate today, cue all the various demographic analysis, but the points I picked up are:

 - Support for the Greens and somewhat more surprisingly the Green'Liberals is much higher among younger voters and decreases with age. They combined 35% of the vote among the under 25's versus just 8% with the over 55's. Among the 18-23 group, ther Greens even ties the UDC as most popoular party on 19%.

 - The bourgeois parties (UDC, PLR, PDC) all perform strongest with older voters, and weakest among younger voters, although with all three support starts to drop off faster among the under 50s. Among the under 35's the PLR only got 12%, putting them behind the UDC, Greens, PS and Green'Liberals.

 - The PS electorate, meanwhile, is very consistent by age

 - Among first time voters, the Greens, UDC, PS, PLR and Green'Liberals effectively all tied

 - A full third of the Greens 2019 electorate consisted of 2015 PS voters. In detail, it was especially urban and well educated voters who deserted the PS for the Greens this time round, with the side effect of making the PS's electorate more working class and rural. They performed strongest among voters with only high school/initial professional qualifications (19% of these voters), whereas it had been the university educated most likely to vote Socialist since the beginning of the 1990s. Thanks to the Greens, the left wing electorate as a whole is still disproportionately university educated, and does particularly badly among people who have compelted apprenticeships.

 - The UDC perform best among people on low-middle incomes; support for the PLR and PVL increases as income increases, and there isn't much of a relationship between support for the Greens, PS and PDC.

 - 38% of the electorate identify as being left wing. Which is the highest ever recorded (and has been increasing steadily since the 90s), while the percentage of people identifying as right-wing dropped back under 50%. Testament to polarisation, the number of people identifying as centrist has dropped from 30% in the 90s to 15% nowadays.

 - Unsurprisingly, women are much more left wing than men; French speakers are much more left wing than German speakers; and secondos and immigrants aren't especially enthusiastic about the UDC.

On another note, I stumbed on this gem on Wikipedia - a map of the 1919 election, the first to take place under Proportional Representation. Funny to note how much, or how little things change - such as the way that the PS electorate has deserted industrial German Switzerland for francophone catholics, or how much the UDC was a protestant party in its original form.

[parochial boy]

Varying updates and then I'll shut up but - in Geneva, Pierre Maudet, the PLR Conseiller d'État who was having a few legal issues owing to his free trip to Abu Dabhi among other things, has been thrown out of the party. He is still claiming to be the victim of a "witch hunt", but I feel thinsg finally got too embarrassing for the party to stick with. Potentially a bit of national pressure too, out of the fears of the PLR's own image.

The UDC world has also been amusing as of late. The anti-immigration campaign continues to... not exactly go to plan, as Guy Parmelin, one of the UDC's two Federal Councillors, came out as against the initiative in an interview with NZZ - cue howls of protest from his party. Even the party is divided, eg various other SVP figures with civil society links have also denounced the vote as "dangerous and extremist". The other federal councillor, Ueli Maurer, a 90/00s hardliner has so far kept his mouth firmly shut on the issue - all the while leading the campaign for the chilcare tax deduction referendum.

Add to this, Christoph Blocher, the party's godfather has now claimed that he wants to Federal Council pension that he renounced back when he left the government. His official reason is that he "doesn't want to give any gifts to the curent extremist green-left parliament", although suspicions are that he is facing liquidity issues of his own. Anyway, it hasn't exactly gone down as a PR coup for the party.

[parochial boy]

The campaigns are rolling in to gear now. I've started to see posters and facebook adverts hanging around, and, the UDC launched there anti-immigration campaign today.

Lots of discussion about how they "don't want a Switzerland of 10 million [people]", how it will mean concreting over our beautiful countryside, how it will push down wages and mean more traffic jams. The last point obviously being the most serious.

And here is their poster -


Obvious anti-EU theme, but what does seem absent in relation to their previous efforts is, well, the lack of race baiting. No more black sheep, missile minarets, crows or burqas; and much less stoking cultural anxiety in their campaign style. Interesting development of a party that has been institutionalised?

Anyway, some polling should come out in the next couple of week - giving a better idea of where things stand at the starting line.

[parochial boy]

Et voilà. Impressively ugly graphics from 20 Minutes. But you get what you pay for, which in this case is nothing.

Immigration initiative


Paternity leave


New fighter jets


With the other two, the hunting law is down 37% - 53% and the tax deduction is ahead 55% - 37%.

Crosstabs are what you'd expect, except with the tax deduction, where both Greens and PS voters support the law (even though it was the left which launched the referendum against it) and UDC voters most opposed. I expect that this would be the one where support levels are most likely to change over the next month, it's a rather less intuitive decision that "do you hate wolves/foreigners/babies/the army/delete as applicable?". In theory support for the initiative should go down too, but, er, if it's starting around the 40% mark then there probably isn't much space to fall.

[parochial boy]

A bit of the trauma of what happened after 2014, a bit of "do you really want a Brexit style shïtshow if we blow up the bilaterals", and the UDC are on a string of defeats at the moment. They're still actively hated by the people who always hated them, but are finding it a lot harder to hang on to the declining pool of people who usually support them.

It played well in the 90s/00s when Switzerland was going through the same economic and identity crisis that other countries are going through right now. It plays less well these days - I think a lot of people are fed up of them banging on about immigration or the EU, when the most important issues have moved on to the climate, or the welfare state, or social changes or whatever.

[parochial boy]

Are the UDC seriously demanding to blow up the bilaterals thinking the Brexit style negotiations would deliver better results? UK would kill for the conflict resolution mechanism the Swiss have with the EU for example!

Ah, well, you know the drill - the UDC are officially supportive of the bilaterals, but, using exactly the same line of argument as supporters of Brexit : "The bilaterals benefit the EU far more than they benefit Switzerland, so they would never, ever dare to cancel them in the event the initiative  passes. And even if they did, we don't really need the bilaterals anyway".

So far, so face palm, you know, we are such a powerful and important country that we can pick and choose exactly what we want - never mind that, in contrast to Brexit, their is no requirement for an article 50 or negotiations and the cliff edge of breaking off the bilaterals is so much starker.

A bit of the trauma of what happened after 2014, a bit of "do you really want a Brexit style shïtshow if we blow up the bilaterals", and the UDC are on a string of defeats at the moment. They're still actively hated by the people who always hated them, but are finding it a lot harder to hang on to the declining pool of people who usually support them.

It played well in the 90s/00s when Switzerland was going through the same economic and identity crisis that other countries are going through right now. It plays less well these days - I think a lot of people are fed up of them banging on about immigration or the EU, when the most important issues have moved on to the climate, or the welfare state, or social changes or whatever.

Who are the SVP mainly losing votes to?

Mostly abstention, believing here they lost a net of about 10% of their electorate to abstention in 2019 (ie the difference between 2015 SVP voters who didn't vote in 2019 vs 2015 non-voters who voted SVP 2019 equals about 10% of their 2019 electorate). Other estimations are that around a fifth of their 2015 electorate didn't vote at all in 2019.

Add to that, they did badly among first time voters, only 17% of them voted UDC.

So their losses are principally down to mobilisation, rather than the small number of people who actually changed party.

[parochial boy]

The campaigns are rolling in to gear now. I've started to see posters and facebook adverts hanging around, and, the UDC launched there anti-immigration campaign today.
...

Obvious anti-EU theme, but what does seem absent in relation to their previous efforts is, well, the lack of race baiting. No more black sheep, missile minarets, crows or burqas; and much less stoking cultural anxiety in their campaign style. Interesting development of a party that has been institutionalised?

It turns out I spoke too soon.  Controversial Zürich SVP national councillor Andreas Glarner (previous hits include doxing a teacher who - legally - allowed muslims students to stay at home to celebrate Eid) shared this video on Facebook and Instagram. Helpfully in Swiss-German and subtitled in Swiss-German to make it totally inaccessible to basically everyone who isn't Swiss German - but it features 12 year old girls complaining about how high immigration meaning she can't play on the streets; she's scared of crime; endless traffic jams; the fact her dad lost can't find a job (3% unemployment), and, probably most controversially, that there are only two other "Swiss" people in her school class. Which obviously begs the question of where the hell she is going to school seeing as I grew up in the most diverse canton in the country and there was no shortage of "native" Swiss people at school - and in anycase, no wonder people with migration backgrounds refuse to vote for a party that apparently wants to exclude you from the nation if your name is Pajtim or Hadzere. Also lots of scary black people in the background.

Anyway, predictable shïtstorm, and Instagram took the video down as being "hate speech" which fuelled a second shïtstorm with the UDC's Thomas Matter accusing Operation Libero of somehow being responsible. Just like to good old days. Weirdly the only actual posters I've seen so far have been about the hunting law.

Staying on the theme of the UDC, they should finally end their misery and elect a new leader on Saturday. Excepting a major surprise, it should be Ticino Conseiller aux États Marco Chiesa (a surprise victor lat October), who would become the first Latin leader of the country's most germanic party. In theory he comes from the standard hardline on immigration (unsurprising for a ticinese) and is close to the Blocher family. However, he does have a more "social" fibre, as befits a Latin politician. He actually used to run and EMS (care home) and has staked out a more moderate line on things like paternity leave or welfare spending. During the 2015-19 parliament he was rated as the most left-wing of the UDC's national council delegation.

In theory that might mean the UDC moving slightly leftwards on those sorts of issues, although in practice unlikely as the real decision making power still lies with the cantonal sections. Chiesa also doesn't speak particularly good German, which leads to the worry of the party being increasingly dominated by Christoph Blocher's daughter Magdalena.

[parochial boy]

And on that note, first wave of polling from SSR-SRG and GFS.Bern generally a much more one-sided picture

Immigration initiative
Yes - 35%
No - 61%

Fighter planes
Yes - 58%
No - 39%

Much lower levels of support in Romandie in both cases, as per usual. GFS.Bern should be releasing polling on the other three shortly

[parochial boy]

Yeah it’s just a calque from the French/German term. I suppose « Romance language » is better English but it’s pretty awkward

[parochial boy]

And the other three from GFS.Bern/SSR

Paternity leave up 63% to 35%

Tax deduction up 51% - 43%

Hunting law up 54% - 36%

Scenarios pointing towards the Federal Council keeping up its winning run. In all likelihood voting intentions won't change much for the three "big" questions; Paternity leave, the fighter jets and immigration restrictions; especially so in the case of the latter two, which have already been voted on in recent years and have quite a high level of opinion formation. Intentions on the two more obscure topics,  the hunting law and the tax deduction could change quite rapidly in comparison.

[parochial boy]

I was considering whether or not to post something about the first round Schaffhausen's government election this Sunday, because, well, it is Schaffhausen, and it is the first round only. The second round and Kantonsrat election only follow on the 27th of September. But, there is so little else going on in the world right now that clearly the meaningless first round of the election to the government of the 19th largest Swiss canton will provide a little glimmer of excitement to an otherwise empty year. Ahem.

The canton's 60 seat parliament currently consists of

SVP - 21 (inc a bunch elected on auxiliary lists)
SP - 14
FDP - 10
AL (far left) - 4
GreenLiberals - 4
Greens - 2
EDU (also known as "the Taliban") - 2
CVP - 2
EVP - 1

while it's governent is comprised of 2 SVP, 2 FDP and one Socialist.

The canton is unique in that it is the only Swiss canton situated largely north of the Rhine (and is home to Europe's largest waterfall, and, for any fans of American Dad is neither anywhere near the alps, nor is it in Sweden). As a result of this, Schaffhausen town managed to get itself bombed by the Americans during the Second World War. 40 people were killed, and to this day there are still suspicions as to whether it was a simple case of misidentification by the Americans, perhaps confusing it with the (not exactly close) Konstanz or whether it was deliberate. The fact that the Americans subsequently came back and bombed the canton's territory on another 4 occasions before the war ended certainly raises question.

Demographically, the canton itself is evenly split between the town of Schaffhausen, and the rest, both home around 40'000 people. It is, like much of Eastern Switzerland, an industrial heartland, in particular heavy industry in with the likes of SIG and George Fischer. To this day, it keeps that industrial heritage alive and is home to a host of international household names like Unilever, IWC and Garmin. Unsurprisingly, this is reflected in a traditional strength for the SP, and, to this day reasonably solid scores for the left considering that it's Eastern Switzerland. It is only one of only a handful of Swiss cantons where the radical left even get a look in.

That said, the other side of the canton is it's deeply conservative, protestant, rural hinterland - in particular with a big(-ish) wine growing industry. It was the SVP's single best canton in both the 2015 and 2019 elections, which is even before you consider the above average presence of the EDU. Like the  sociologically similar "Wineland" region of canton Zürich, the agrarian party has been present in the canton ever since its formation - already being the largest party in the canton back in the 1920s.

In practice, the Schaffhausen is considered to be something of a "swing canton" in the context of federal votes, in particular with popular iniatives it is often around about the middle of the pack in terms of it's support for a question - meaning it can be the make or break canton in terms of getting over the 12 canton mark needed to pass the initiative (in practice it's actually noticeably to the right of the national average - it just so happens that the smaller cantons, bar Jura, are the most right wing ones - giving the right something of an advantage when it comes to the 12 canton hurdle).

With this election in particular - well it's particular interest is that it is the first canton to vote in the "post"-corona (well, maybe not as it it turns out) world. Discussion seems to be that, shockingly, people aren't too engaged. Which might be predictive of a low turnout, but, voting is obligatory in Schaffhausen - complete with hefty 6 franc fine if you don't do your duty. Anyway, whatever, I think the government election will only need one round. 4 of the 5 incumbents are standing: the FDP's Martin Kessler and Christian Amsler; Cornelia Stamm Hurter of the SVP and Walter Vogelsanger of the SP. The one open seat will be a battle between the SP's Patrick Strasser and SVP's Dino Tamagni. Exciting stuff. Jura, Basel-Stadt and Aargau are all voting later in the Autumn. All are fundamentally more interesting cantons.

[parochial boy]

[...]
In practice, the Schaffhausen is considered to be something of a "swing canton" in the context of federal votes, in particular with popular iniatives it is often around about the middle of the pack in terms of it's support for a question - meaning it can be the make or break canton in terms of getting over the 12 canton mark needed to pass the initiative (in practice it's actually noticeably to the right of the national average - it just so happens that the smaller cantons, bar Jura, are the most right wing ones - giving the right something of an advantage when it comes to the 12 canton hurdle).
[...]

My impression always was that Schaffhausen has this certain "populist"© bent, in a different and milder form than Ticino. On some economic issues it even tilts to the left ("Affordable housing", "Against urban sprawl") and it was the only canton to vote for the abolishment of flat-rate taxation of millionaires, although that popular vote was difficult to interpret as a left-right thing in the Swiss context.

Yeah, I would say that I had the same feeling to a degree - but it really applies to the town and maybe the likes of Neuhausen. Schaffhausen itself tends to vote similarly to similar sized towns further west on the economic stuff, but more conservatively on other issues (much higher levels of support than Aarau or Olten for "self-determination"; ending free movement or for abolishing the TV licence fee for example - and those are both industrial towns as well); and it's obviously much weightier in relation to canton as a whole. Rural Schaffhausen isn't really distinguishable than Thurgau or Züri-land in the way it votes.

And yeah, also populism of a different sort to down south. Much less existential angst about identity and being ignored by the rest of the country in Schaffhausen, and the Grenzgänger phenomenon is far smaller. That, and Ticino's "populism" is also obviously a lot more than "economically left, culturally right". It's perfectly happy to vote to the right of the country on some economic issues, and was also much happier to outlaw homophobic discimination - and unlike Schaffhausen, Lugano is, if anything, more rightwing than the canton as a whole.

[parochial boy]

Two pictures - first, from Watson.ch, a map of population growth by commune during 2009-19 based on the OFS's recently released population statistics. It clearly shows the population booms in the Gros-de-Vaud, Broye Vaudoise, francophone regions of Fribourg and the Bas-Valais, as well as in Greater Zürich. Unsurprisingly, population declining in rural moutnainous regions, mostly away from the most tousitsy areas (eg the Surselva in the Grisons), but still including the likes of Klosters, Davos or Zermatt that are all home to famous ski resorts.



The second, a certain Federal Councillor slightly controversially expressing himself in the UDC's tout-ménage in support of the anti-immigration initiative that was sent out to every household in the country yesterday. Federal Councillors are not supposed to set themselves out against the Federal Council's official position, indeed the UDC's other one has already declared himself against the initiative. So, depending on your point of few, Maurer is a man of integrity standing up for the people, or, a selfish hack undermining the Federal Council and the Swiss system to support his party.

[parochial boy]

And Schaffhausen voted - big surprise, FDP incumbent Christian Amsler lost, and lost badly, meaning that both challengers were elected. So in all, the SP gain a second seat at the expense of the FDP.

Bit of a slap for Amsler in particular, who was supposed to have something of a future at the federal level - he had been embroiled in a scandal relating to a conflic of interest issue at the cantonal dental school. But still, ouch.

Results in full

[parochial boy]

Second wave of Tamedia polling for the September votes (with changes on the first wave):

Limited immigration initiative
Yes - 37% (-4%)
No - 61% (+5%)

Fighter jets
Yes - 58% (+8%)
No - 40% (-7%)

Paternity Leave
Yes - 66% (nc)
No - 33% (nc)

Hunting Law
Yes - 43% (+6%)
No - 50% (-3%)

Child tax deduction
Yes - 53% (-2%)
No - 41% (+4%)

At this point, I'd expect everything except the Immigration initiative to pass. The Hunting Law and child tax deduction seems a little bit more competitive, but both would seem to be tending towards wins for the government.

[parochial boy]

And in their ongoing merger-cum-takeover of the PBD, the Christian Democrats, in a fit of creativity, have decided that they want their new name to be...

https://twitter.com/CVP_PDC/status/1301912656048279554

The Centre/Le Centre/Die Mitte/Alleanza del Centro

Name proposed, with the final decision to be made by the membership

I mean, come on...

Remains to be seen whether dropping the "Christian" appelation puts off more of their remaining Catholic supporters (nb in the Valais, Jura, rural bits of Lucerne, primitive Switzerland) than it attracts "secular, centrist, urban" voters.

[parochial boy]

The Conseil National somewhat surprisingly passed a bill to reduce the voting age to 16 today. Still needs to go through the senate (and presumably a referendum), but is yet another reminder of how different this parliament is to the last one.

On the other hand, the Conseil des États pushed their final vote on gay marriage back to Novermber (was supposed to be this month) because... "more consultation time needed". Like the last 7 years weren't enough or something.

[parochial boy]

And in their ongoing merger-cum-takeover of the PBD, the Christian Democrats, in a fit of creativity, have decided that they want their new name to be...

https://twitter.com/CVP_PDC/status/1301912656048279554

The Centre/Le Centre/Die Mitte/Alleanza del Centro

Name proposed, with the final decision to be made by the membership

I mean, come on...

Remains to be seen whether dropping the "Christian" appelation puts off more of their remaining Catholic supporters (nb in the Valais, Jura, rural bits of Lucerne, primitive Switzerland) than it attracts "secular, centrist, urban" voters.

Do you think the Protestant People's Party/EVP could benefit from a CVP/BDP merger?

Probably not. The EVP are a pretty niche party, whose electorate and membership consists almost entirely of practising protestants, and in particular those belonging to the Free Churches and one of the particular protestant sects. I think their evangelicals or methodists rather than the reformed churches, although I couldn't say any further because I have no idea how to distinguish between the various protestant currents; except the Free Churches are not funded by the state* and are closer to what would be called "Evangelical" in the Anglophone world.

Point being, their support is basically restricted to people who are pretty serious about religion and to regions where there are a lot of those particular protestant churches. That is, specifically in the "bible belt" regions like the Zürcher Oberland, the Kulm district of Aargau, select bits of the Bernese alps and a handful of other regions. Pretty much everywhere else they are marginal.

In contrast, the PBD are not a religious party and their electorate wouldn't typically consider itself as being a religious electorate, even if the background is overwhelmingly protestant. Even in Bern, where both parties are relatively strong, they have very different electoral geographies. The PBD electorate is much more concentrated on the plateau, in particular near Lake Bienne, which has a very different economic and cultural background (market gardening, as opposed to rearing cows, and much less religious).

If anything, the EVP could stand to lose as their seat in Aargau was won off the back of an alliance with the PBD - which might not happen in a post merger world.

* To cut a long story short, in Switzerland you typically pick a religion when you register with the local municipality, and based on that part of your tax bill will be used to fund said religion. If you pick "not religious" or a religion not recognised by the state, your tax bill will be reduced by the amount that would otherwise be funding your religon

[parochial boy]

Some of the cantonal votes also going ahead in two weeks:

Geneva is voting on a 23 franc ($25.50) per hour minimum wage, alongside the usual list of esoteric and uninteresting constitutional amendments (should it be possible to replace the head of the cantonal government during his mandate? knowing full well the role is essentially meaningless? Do you even know who that person currently is? do you care?)

Zurich is doing some stuff about the canton taking over part of social security and transport costs fso as to reduce the burden on the municipalities (whew), and a new football stadium.

Everywhere else either isn't having any, or if they are, I obviously haven't had anything come through the door about them and there hasn't been any media coverage that I've noticed.

There's also been a bit of controversy, why not, about the wording of the questions in the federal votes.

Principally, the question on paternity leave which contains a lot of jargon and conveniently manages to avoid actually using the words "paternity" or "leave" (I would translate the question, but I actually don't know what half the words even are in English. It's object 4 here); but also the "childcare tax reduction" vote which implies that the law is merely about a tax reduction on childcare costs when that is only a tiny part of the actual total cost of the project. CHF 10 million out of the total 370 million.

There is precedent for this sort of thing winding up in the Federal Court, and even for votes having to be reheld. Which would be fun, but also typically Swiss to find some way of delaying everything pointlessly for another couple of years.

Great thread!
What's the deal with this Von Dreyen figure :https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/conspiracy-theorist-19-banks-fortune-from-swiss-r87shnbwt

I don't really trust the Times after their hot takes on Dutch politics

Thanks! I'll be honest though, I've never heard of her, have never had a conversation about her, and briefly searching some of the news sites I normally go to, didn't really see anything beyond a few vague "look at this kooky teenager" articles from 2019 - mostly relating to 5G at that point. And that includes 20 Minutes, who usually love sensationalist exclamation-mark laden articles about people being vaguely eccentric.

I guess she might be popular with the kind of people who go demonstrate against face masks, but I'd be minded to think The Times might be being a little bit hyperbolic. I think it's pretty much the curse of any small country that coverage in the big anglophone titles is going to be, er, somewhat out of touch with reality to be honest. 🤨

[parochial boy]

Final polling dumps ahead of Sunday - coming from Tamedia and GfS.Bern. Scores as follows:

Immigration initiative

Tamedia:
Yes - 33% (-4%)
No - 65% (+4%)

GFS.Bern:
Yes - 35% (nc)
No - 63% (+2%)

Fighter jets

Tamedia:
Yes - 65% (+7%)
No - 34% (-6%)

GFS.Bern:
Yes - 56% (-2%)
No - 40% (+2%)

Paternity Leave

Tamedia:
Yes - 70% (+4%)
No - 28% (-5%)

GFS.Bern:
Yes - 61% (-2%)
No - 35% (nc)

Hunting Law

Tamedia:
Yes - 49% (+6%)
No - 48% (-2%)

GFS.Bern:
Yes - 46% (-8%)
No - 48% (+12%)

Tax reduction

Tamedia:
Yes - 51% (-2%)
No - 46% (+5%)

GFS.Bern:
Yes - 43% (-8%)
No - 52% (+9%)

The last two seem genuinely up for grabs. If I'm remembering correctly, a "No" to either one would be the government's first defeat since 2017.

[parochial boy]

What actually is the hunting law proposal - making it easier or harder?

Easier, principally easier to kill wolves when they are threatening livestock