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

[parochial boy]

First poll out for the May referendums from Tamedia with LeeWas has

Gun law passing by 53% - 46%

RFFA (corporate tax law) passing by 62% - 30%

With the RFFA vote, there is actually a fairly wide coalition building in opposition to the law; with opposition from the Greens and GreenLiberals, but with the PS and UDC also both seeing big splits on the question. The main argument against it is turning into a fairly technical one - the corporate tax reform and the increase to AVS (Social Security) are technically separate issues, and therefore should be being voted on separately rather than as one question. The argument is therefore that forcing people to vote on both at the same time is anti-democratic.

In other referendum news, the very-very-very Christian Conservative UDF has managed to get the signatures required to hold a referendum against the law passed last year that included homphobia within existing anti-racism legislation. This ran straight into controversy as many people (including Mathias Reynard, the Socialist deputy behind the law) have posted evidence of campaigners actually lying about what they were collecting signature for (in this case claiming that they were collecting signature against "homphobia in the army").

JuSo, the Socialist youth, have also collected enough signatures for their "99%" initiative which will increase the tax on "income derived from capital wealth". That is, any income from interest, dividends etc... will be multiplied by 150%, for the purpose of calculating total income to be taxed (eg, if someone earns 1 million francs a year from dividends, that would be taxed as if it was income of 1.5 million).

[parochial boy]

Results from the executive election suggesting that even poor old Ticino can't resist national trends. Overall, no change in the composition of the government, but the UDC-Lega list that had been expected to sweep away to a huge victory actually find themselves down on the two parties' joint score from 2015. The PS, who many had expected to lose their sole government seat, hold on comfortably, actually gaining vote share. The only exception is a big loss for the Greens. Although the TI Greens have always been a little bit unusual (under the last leadership, they went through a phase of joining forces with the Lega and UDC on "nationalist" type questions like immiration, the EU or Muslims).

Full results are:
1. Lega-UDC - 2 seats - 27.9%(-4.3%)
2. PLR - 1 seats - 24.5% (-1.8%)
3. PDC - 1 seat - 18.2% (+0.7%)
4. PS - 1 seat - 17.1% (+2.3%)
-----
5. Greens  - 4.3% (-2.3%)
6. Movement for Socialism - Partito Operaio Popolare (ie Popular Workers Party, ie the Labour Party) - 2.1% (+2.1%)
7. Piu Donne (leftish feminist party, literally "more women") - 1.9% (+1.9%)
8. Communist Party - 1.0% (+1.0%)
9. GreenLiberals - 1.0% (+0.7%)

The rest went to assorted randoms.

Results for the parliament not coming out till tomorrow. Because of course Ticino is the only canton that can't count everything in a day.

[parochial boy]

Results from Ticino parliament, by and large very little movement. No Green wave, but that was expected as immiration is still a hot topic in Ticino in the way it isn't up north. Lega are still the biggest losers, with a small swing to the left - but mainly benefiting the smaller far left and feminist parties. Both the Greens and PS stay flat, which would seem to suggest that the Greens losses yesterday were mostly tactical voting to keep the left in government. UDC also gain, but they are almost the moderate option in comparison to Lega....

PLR - 25.3% (-1.4%) | 23 seats (-1)
Lega - 19.9% (-4.3%) | 18 seats (-4)
PPD/PDC - 17.6% (-1.0%) | 16 seats (-1)
PS - 14.5% (-0.1%) | 13 seats (nc)
UDC - 6.8% (+1.0%) | 7 seats (+2)
Greens - 6.7% (+0.6%) | 6 seats (nc)
Movimento per il Socialismo-POP - 2.4% (+2.0%) | 3 seats (+2)
Piu Donne - 2.1% (+2.1%) | 2 seats (new)
Communist Party - 1.2% (-0.2%) | 2 seats (nc)

Everyone else irrelevant, but 5 seats for the far left. Lol Ticino.

Anyway, with that, every canton except Appenzell-Innerrhoden (whose elections are non-partisan, and in any case the landsgemeinde matters more) has held its election since the last federal election. And somewhat noteworthily, the PLR's loss of a seat means that the PS actually draw level with them as the joint second most succesful party during the current legislature, with the Greens being far and away the most succesful. All of which augurs well for the left come October, especially when you consider that the Greens and Socialists were still losing seats up until the beginning of 2017.

Overall movement in the cantonal parliaments since 2015, if I have my numbers right, are as follows:

Greens: +42
PLR: +20
PS: +20
PVL: +17
PEV: -3
PBD: -20
PDC: -33
UDC: -38

In addition to that, the two regionalist anti-immigrant populist parties (Lega and the MCG) lost a combined 12 seats in Geneva and Ticino. While the byzantine and disparate network of far left parties made a net gain of 2.

On that basis, I imagine there'll be next to no movement among the smaller parties in the next parliament. The MCG will probably lose their sole seat; the Evangelicals and Lega should probably both keep their two seats but definitely won't gain; the POP will hold on to Denis de la Reusille's seat in Neuchâtel, but it will be a stretch for a joint far left list to gain one of the the two new seats in Geneva or Vaud, likewise gaining a seat is probably out of reach for the AL in Zurich; UDF won't pick up a seat either - although all publicity is good publicity arguably.

[Velasco]

I found this article past weekend. These people seem to be well focused. Did they have influence in the outcome of recent elections (Zurich for instance)?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/07/we-had-to-fight-operation-libero-the-swiss-youth-group-taking-on-populism

How do you beat rightwing populists? With pink socks, viral videos, condoms – and an iron determination not to let them decide what matters.

That’s how Operation Libero are doing it anyway (...)

“It’s about the political space, who’s defining and shaping it, who’s communicating strategically within it, who, basically, is holding it,” says Flavia Kleiner, 29, the group’s self-assured co-president, over tea in a Zurich bookshop and coffee house.

[parochial boy]

I found this article past weekend. These people seem to be well focused. Did they have influence in the outcome of recent elections (Zurich for instance)?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/apr/07/we-had-to-fight-operation-libero-the-swiss-youth-group-taking-on-populism

How do you beat rightwing populists? With pink socks, viral videos, condoms – and an iron determination not to let them decide what matters.

That’s how Operation Libero are doing it anyway (...)

“It’s about the political space, who’s defining and shaping it, who’s communicating strategically within it, who, basically, is holding it,” says Flavia Kleiner, 29, the group’s self-assured co-president, over tea in a Zurich bookshop and coffee house.

I think the article is, kind of ovreplaying how important Opération Libero have been. I mean, don't get me wrong, I think it's nice that they have been loudly "fighting back" so to speak; but the real reason for the recent run of results is mostly down to the political scene moving on and just leaving the UDC/SVP behind.

I mean, just to begin with - the UDC have collapsed in French speaking Switzerland just as much as they have in German Switzerland (notwithstanding this year's... exceptional results). And the Librero guys are basically invisible in French Switzerland. Until I moved to Zurich I had basically never come across them, although they are a lot more visible here.

But really what has happened it that actual levels of immigration have declined in the last few years, and the "troublesome" immigrants from Albania and Sri Lanka and the like are increasingly seen to be well integrated, and so on. You also have a younger generation starting to vote who have basically grown up in a multicultural country/in Schengen (recent polling seems to show that the UDC are only the 4th party with the under 30s); which just means that the UDC's traditional campaign issues are less relevant. In contrast, the issues at the top of the agenda are climate change, pensions, health insurance costs - and those are all things where the UDC have nothing relevant to say. So they struggle to appeal to new voters, and their existing ones are less motivated to turn out.

Add to that, they have a generational issue of sorts - many of the big guys of the past (Brunner, Freysinger, Maurer) are all retiring, with no-one to replace them. At the same time, Blocher is still pulling the strings behind the scenes - but he is, well, 80 years old, and looks increasingly out of touch. They have indicated that they aren't going to change tack at all in terms of campaigning for the federal elections - will obsessively focus on the EU framework agreement (I mean, great, but it is actually quite popular) and will continue to ignore the climate change issue or healthcare costs and so on - all of the issues that people care about more these fays.

So, in that respect, I think Opération Libero are almost more a symbol of a more widespread change. A lot of the UDC's issues are self-inflicted, but the like of the Libero guys are kind of just representative of a newer, more progressive younger generation. That and the fact that people are fed up with one party obsessively setting the agenda - and people realising that blaming the EU and foreigners for everything doesn't actually solve anything (like, I was talking to a guy about the guns referendum yesterday evening, fairly typical Swiss German guy, and he just said he was sick of going to vote about whatever new issue Blocher was having hysterics about, especially when the actual impact of passing the gun law would be close to zero).

[parochial boy]

In other news that might be somewhat relevant - the Federal Court has ruled to cancel the result of the 2016 referendum "against the penalisation of marriage" (about how married couples were taxed), on the basis of the voter information brochure containing inaccurate information about the number of couples that were affected by the law. As the original referendum was rejected by a small (50.8%) margin, the Federal Court decided to cancel the vote, meaning that it will now have to be re-held.

[parochial boy]

First GFS.Bern poll for the May votes has both referendums passing comfortably.

The corporate tax / Social Security reform is ahead 54% to 37% and the Gun law has Yes winning by 66% to 33%.

The gun law has a pretty normal profile of support, highest support on the left, and in Romandie; lowest on the right and in Ticino. As the campaign is almost entirely centred around the impact of a "no" vote on Switzerland's membership of the Schengen area (the issue of actual gun safety has barely featured at all, especially as the UDC appear to be losing the "they're going to take your guns!" argument), that level of support is pretty indicative in its own right.

On the tax / social security vote, the democratic argument about combining two different subjects in one vote is becoming the most effective line against the reforms. Support is tending to follow party lines, which means an unusual alliance of left, UDC and GreenLiberals against the law; but the biggest divide is an age one. 62% support amont eh over 65s compared to only 41% among the under 40s

[parochial boy]

Updating this quickly, the recent polls from GFS and Tamedia all have both votes passing with around 60-65% support - very little change over the course of the campaign. The only side note is that the "No" campaign on the Gun rights referendum have been roundly criticised for being somewhat inaccurate in their interpretation of what they law would actually mean; and their campaign poster decrying the law as "Anti-Swiss" has also been the subject of a fair degree of sneering from your metropolitan liberal types.

Although having said that, they have gone out of their way to try and make the point that a rejection of the law wouldn't threaten membership of Schengen - which is quite interesting in so far as it shows how much public opinion has changed on that particular issue.

There was something else I was going to write about, but I've forgotten what it was so it can't have been very important. The parties are all finalising their lists for the federal elections though, and there are a few cantons which are worth paying attention to.

[rob in cal]

   Intresting about the Schengen debate. So when Switzerland originally joined was it considered pretty controversial?

[parochial boy]

It went to a referendum which passed by about 55-45, with most of the german cantons rejecting it.

That referendum was the source of one of the UDC's more famous posters:



Which translates roughly as "Lose Security? Lose jobs?"

And then, the whole Schengen project was in serious troubleonly a couple of years back at the height of the refugee crisis

[parochial boy]

Relatively interesting map from the Tages Anzeiger showing how often each commune has voted the same way as Switzerland as a whole in votes since 1981.



Unsurprisingly, the areas most likely to disagree are the most left-wing areas (the Franches-Montagnes and Delémont districicts in the Jura) and most right wing (the rural heartlands of Schwytz and Bern). As well as the Valais Romand, as Valais tends to have somewhat sui-generis voting habits.

On the reverse, most often voting with the nation as a whole is basically the agglomerations of the three major German speaking cities + the densely populated Aar valley (and, um, the remote valleys of the Grisons). Which makes sense as this is  where the bulk of the population as a whole lives. Quite a vivid linguistic border north of the Alps as well, although which dissapears once you hit the Préalpes Fribourgeoises.

[parochial boy]

Both votes passed comfortably in the end. the RFFA tax and social security refors by a 66.4% to 33.6% margin; and the Gun control law by 63.7% to 36.3% here,.

Tages Anzeiger have interactives maps here; but well, it was a Yes to both across the board - only Ticino rejected the gun law; and in what was essentially a victory for the pro-Europeans, it was a higher Yes on both in Romandie. With the gun law, in what came down to a binary choice between Schengen and Guns, the sweeping victory across the country (even Schwyz backing it!) kind of shows where public opinion is on Schengen these days, and reflects why the UDC are not exactly looking forward to October.

The PS has also pulled itself together and in light of the RFFA vote has launched a referendum to institute minimum nationwide tax rates. This is to combat the phenomenon of "fiscal competition" where (Swiss German) cantons compete with each other to attract businesses and rich people by offering the lowest taxes possible; as much anything, this phenomena is one of the key reasons Switzerland continues to be a tax haven -as the right wing and sparsely populated cantons of inner Switzerland have no qualms about forcing their agendas on the rest of the country.

Anyway, next stop, the federal elections

[mileslunn]

Both votes passed comfortably in the end. the RFFA tax and social security refors by a 66.4% to 33.6% margin; and the Gun control law by 63.7% to 36.3% here,.

Tages Anzeiger have interactives maps here; but well, it was a Yes to both across the board - only Ticino rejected the gun law; and in what was essentially a victory for the pro-Europeans, it was a higher Yes on both in Romandie. With the gun law, in what came down to a binary choice between Schengen and Guns, the sweeping victory across the country (even Schwyz backing it!) kind of shows where public opinion is on Schengen these days, and reflects why the UDC are not exactly looking forward to October.

The PS has also pulled itself together and in light of the RFFA vote has launched a referendum to institute minimum nationwide tax rates. This is to combat the phenomenon of "fiscal competition" where (Swiss German) cantons compete with each other to attract businesses and rich people by offering the lowest taxes possible; as much anything, this phenomena is one of the key reasons Switzerland continues to be a tax haven -as the right wing and sparsely populated cantons of inner Switzerland have no qualms about forcing their agendas on the rest of the country.

Anyway, next stop, the federal elections

On gun laws changes seem quite modest when compared to gun laws in other developed countries save perhaps the US so was it only just over Scheghen or is it like other developed countries people just favour more restrictive gun laws.  I realize in Western Europe Swiss and Brits are the two poles with Brits being the most anti-gun (one of the few European countries that bans handguns outright and limits semi-automatics to .22 caliber rimfire, all others banned) and Swiss most pro-gun although within developed world probably not as pro-gun as Americans I assume.  There you have Americans on one end while Japanese and Koreans on other.

For minimum tax on rich, how likely is that to pass?  Where I live in Canada, taxing the rich more is wildly popular which is why we have one of the highest top marginal tax rates in world even compared to most European countries (depends on province though, but generally in Western Canada top rates are like Western Europe, in Eastern provinces where most live comparable to Nordic Countries, although this is very recent as top rate hiked by 4% federally in 2015 and most provinces have in last decade hiked them too) but I get the impression soaking the rich doesn't have the same appeal in Switzerland as it does in some other countries.  For starters inequality is not that high and that is the big thing pushing the soak the rich rhetoric in some countries.  Unlike its neighbours where top rates are generally in high 40s or low 50s, in Switzerland most I believe have combined total top rates in 30s and a few high tax areas in low 40s but very few areas over 45% and none over 50%.

[parochial boy]

On gun laws changes seem quite modest when compared to gun laws in other developed countries save perhaps the US so was it only just over Scheghen or is it like other developed countries people just favour more restrictive gun laws.  I realize in Western Europe Swiss and Brits are the two poles with Brits being the most anti-gun (one of the few European countries that bans handguns outright and limits semi-automatics to .22 caliber rimfire, all others banned) and Swiss most pro-gun although within developed world probably not as pro-gun as Americans I assume.  There you have Americans on one end while Japanese and Koreans on other.

Yeah, the campaign was almost entirely focussed around the risk to Schengen membership. Aside from a small vocal "way of life" gun lobby (which resembles the one in France more than the USA) the simple fact is that guns are not an issue that people care about. Gun crime is pretty rare, and there isn't the cultural warfare around the issue that makes it so salient in America - so people tend to have very little interest in fighting battles over it.

The "No" vote in Ticino is far better understood as a reflection of it's specific scepticism of the EU, rather than any particular love of guns among the Swiss-Italians

For minimum tax on rich, how likely is that to pass?  Where I live in Canada, taxing the rich more is wildly popular which is why we have one of the highest top marginal tax rates in world even compared to most European countries (depends on province though, but generally in Western Canada top rates are like Western Europe, in Eastern provinces where most live comparable to Nordic Countries, although this is very recent as top rate hiked by 4% federally in 2015 and most provinces have in last decade hiked them too) but I get the impression soaking the rich doesn't have the same appeal in Switzerland as it does in some other countries.  For starters inequality is not that high and that is the big thing pushing the soak the rich rhetoric in some countries.  Unlike its neighbours where top rates are generally in high 40s or low 50s, in Switzerland most I believe have combined total top rates in 30s and a few high tax areas in low 40s but very few areas over 45% and none over 50%.

Very little chance of passing. That isn't down to attitudes towards taxing the rich at large (polling tends to suggest that there is broad support for higher taxes on the rich), but simply because the Swiss electorate are very well behaved and virtually always reject popular initiatives.

There are also a couple of other points worth making. Firstly, yes Switzerland has relatively low income inequality - but it does have very high wealth inequality; which is why the  JuSo initiative is focussed on income derived from capital (ie wealth).

On top of that, taxes in Switzerland vary wildly depending on where you are (and the fact that most taxes are collected and the communal and cantonal level makes it very hard to make much sense of top marginal rates). But basically, you can get the jist from the good old Tages-Anzeiger again. A married couple with two kids earning 1 million francs a year (*cough*) could pay an effective tax (excluding federal taxes) rate as low as 9% in the tax haven communes in Ausserschwyz to as much as 29% in parts of the Jura. Once you factor in the federal taxes and Social Security, the higher tax communes are quite high even by rest of Europe standards.

Going back to the point about wealth inequality, this is leading to a growing conclusion that the fiscal competition system is an active source of harm by itself. In that low tax communes have higher property prices, leading to them having exclusively wealth populations and therefore lower social charges. Meaning that they can charge lower taxes and create a self-replicating cycle. On the other side, lower income areas, and larger towns, have naturally to spend more on both social welfare, but all the trappings that people expect from the state - from schools, to infrastructure, to whatever; meaning they are forced to charge higher tax rates.

Add to that, a number of smaller Swiss-German cantons (Zug, Schwyz and Nidwald being the ugly sisters here) have discovered that - thanks to small native populations and the traditional communal solidarity welfare system, which inherently reduces the social charges on these sorts of places - they can game the system and literally "get rich quick" of the back of setting themselves up as fiscal paradises. This isn't just damaging to the rest of the world, but to the rest of the country who wind up essentially forced to subsidise businesses that set up in low tax jurisdictions, but rely on the infrastructure and skills provided by the rest of the country.

So yeah, what was I saying - yes there is some demand to soak the rich (Basel actually passed a wealth tax this weekend); but the issue is about wealth more than it is about income.

[mileslunn]

On gun laws changes seem quite modest when compared to gun laws in other developed countries save perhaps the US so was it only just over Scheghen or is it like other developed countries people just favour more restrictive gun laws.  I realize in Western Europe Swiss and Brits are the two poles with Brits being the most anti-gun (one of the few European countries that bans handguns outright and limits semi-automatics to .22 caliber rimfire, all others banned) and Swiss most pro-gun although within developed world probably not as pro-gun as Americans I assume.  There you have Americans on one end while Japanese and Koreans on other.

Yeah, the campaign was almost entirely focussed around the risk to Schengen membership. Aside from a small vocal "way of life" gun lobby (which resembles the one in France more than the USA) the simple fact is that guns are not an issue that people care about. Gun crime is pretty rare, and there isn't the cultural warfare around the issue that makes it so salient in America - so people tend to have very little interest in fighting battles over it.

The "No" vote in Ticino is far better understood as a reflection of it's specific scepticism of the EU, rather than any particular love of guns among the Swiss-Italians

For minimum tax on rich, how likely is that to pass?  Where I live in Canada, taxing the rich more is wildly popular which is why we have one of the highest top marginal tax rates in world even compared to most European countries (depends on province though, but generally in Western Canada top rates are like Western Europe, in Eastern provinces where most live comparable to Nordic Countries, although this is very recent as top rate hiked by 4% federally in 2015 and most provinces have in last decade hiked them too) but I get the impression soaking the rich doesn't have the same appeal in Switzerland as it does in some other countries.  For starters inequality is not that high and that is the big thing pushing the soak the rich rhetoric in some countries.  Unlike its neighbours where top rates are generally in high 40s or low 50s, in Switzerland most I believe have combined total top rates in 30s and a few high tax areas in low 40s but very few areas over 45% and none over 50%.

Very little chance of passing. That isn't down to attitudes towards taxing the rich at large (polling tends to suggest that there is broad support for higher taxes on the rich), but simply because the Swiss electorate are very well behaved and virtually always reject popular initiatives.

There are also a couple of other points worth making. Firstly, yes Switzerland has relatively low income inequality - but it does have very high wealth inequality; which is why the  JuSo initiative is focussed on income derived from capital (ie wealth).

On top of that, taxes in Switzerland vary wildly depending on where you are (and the fact that most taxes are collected and the communal and cantonal level makes it very hard to make much sense of top marginal rates). But basically, you can get the jist from the good old Tages-Anzeiger again. A married couple with two kids earning 1 million francs a year (*cough*) could pay an effective tax (excluding federal taxes) rate as low as 9% in the tax haven communes in Ausserschwyz to as much as 29% in parts of the Jura. Once you factor in the federal taxes and Social Security, the higher tax communes are quite high even by rest of Europe standards.

Going back to the point about wealth inequality, this is leading to a growing conclusion that the fiscal competition system is an active source of harm by itself. In that low tax communes have higher property prices, leading to them having exclusively wealth populations and therefore lower social charges. Meaning that they can charge lower taxes and create a self-replicating cycle. On the other side, lower income areas, and larger towns, have naturally to spend more on both social welfare, but all the trappings that people expect from the state - from schools, to infrastructure, to whatever; meaning they are forced to charge higher tax rates.

Add to that, a number of smaller Swiss-German cantons (Zug, Schwyz and Nidwald being the ugly sisters here) have discovered that - thanks to small native populations and the traditional communal solidarity welfare system, which inherently reduces the social charges on these sorts of places - they can game the system and literally "get rich quick" of the back of setting themselves up as fiscal paradises. This isn't just damaging to the rest of the world, but to the rest of the country who wind up essentially forced to subsidise businesses that set up in low tax jurisdictions, but rely on the infrastructure and skills provided by the rest of the country.

So yeah, what was I saying - yes there is some demand to soak the rich (Basel actually passed a wealth tax this weekend); but the issue is about wealth more than it is about income.

That  makes sense and in Switzerland they have a wealth tax which only Norway, Spain, and France have, other European countries don't and France is much more limited.  In Canada we don't have a wealth tax nor does US and due to high real estate prices in some large cities wealth tax a tougher sell than higher income taxes on rich.

As for guns, I suspect low crime rate is probably why non-issue.  I do wonder if one mass shooting like New Zealand would change things as prior to Christchurch they had some of the most permissive gun laws in developed world now some of the most restrictive.

[parochial boy]

New Tamedia poll for the federal elections. Usual disclaimers about Tamedia apply, and it seems to contradict cantonal election results somewhat, but:

UDC/SVP: 28.9% (-0.5%)
PS: 17.6% (-1.2%)
PLR/FDP: 15.5% (-0.9%)
PDC/CVP: 10.3% (-1,3%)
Greens: 9.9% (+2.8%)
GreenLiberals: 6.9% (+2.3%)
PDB/BDP: 3.3% (-0.8%)

Panic stations for the Christian Democrats.

On top of that, the Zürich PS has also lost another hitter to the GreenLiberals. After Galladé earlier in the year, ex-PS Zurich cantonal president Daniel Frei has defected as well - citing the Socialist's swing to the left ("obsession with class warfare", as he put it), and scepticism of the EU framework agreement as reasons.

[parochial boy]

Sotomo/SRG poll. Looks more like recent cantonal results
UDC/SVP: 26,5%
PS: 19,1%
PLR/FDP: 16,1%
PDC/CVP: 10,6%
Greens: 10,1%
GreenLiberals: 6,4%
PDB/BDP: 2,9%
PEV: 1,8%

Greens have been talking about getting a federal council seat this week. But reckon it should come from the PLR (or UDC) rather than the PDC so as to have a representative left-right split. They've also been the first to mention out loud that linguistic/ethnic questions shouldn't be a factor in federal council elections. Brave, but also probably in line with what most people think.

[parochial boy]

So tomorrow there is a major "Women's Strike" (well not really a strike, being typically Swiss most people have taken a day's leave to go and protest) going to be taking place to protest against, well the same inequalities that women suffer everywhere in terms of salaries, pensions, political representation and so on. This is to mark 28 years since a version of the same happened on the same day in 1991.

The thing is, Switzerland is generally quite bad at gender equality (shockingly). Eg there was a recent controversy about inequalities in bank bonuses actually getting worse (my heart bleeds...). Anyway, despite certain controversies over the way it has been politicised, and fears it might not really be succesful - it looks as if it going to have a big turnout tomorrow; and is supported by a fairly substantial majority of both men and women.

Otherwise, I've started seeing posters for the Federal election start to go up even though it's only June. The GreenLiberals have a bunch up already, and I'm quite curious about where their magical money pot is coming from; but that might just be because I've never really noticed them as a party before this year.

[parochial boy]

I got a special newspaper from the UDC on Friday, very loudly denouncing "Red-Green Climate Hysteria"; making out that trying to address climate change is a leftist ploy, would ruin the economy and in any case Switzerland is already really green anyway (and with some added stuff about how the "left", which apparently runs the country despite only having a quarter of the seats in parliament, want to import asylum seekers etc...)*.

All of this is broadly the kind of stuff you'd expect from them - but does reflect some of the own issues the party is having about the climate debate and changing issue salience. A few months, ago, after the Zurich debacle, the Zurich party president Konrad Langhart was more or less forced out, being blamed for the disaster. However, Langhart snapped back, with an attack on Roger Köppel and the "Gold Coast" (ie super rich Zurich suburbia) wing of the party, in particular for its focus on issues that aren't relevant to the agricultural base, but especially for it's climate change denial.

Köppel, who is standing for the Conseil d'Etat in Zurich, is currently one of the main influences in the party. In particular, he is known as the editor of Die Weltwoche, a hard right and controversial news magazine. In recent months, he has also taken a very hard line against the school strikes and climate change activism and the like. But at the same time, Langhart, a farmer from the rural Weinland region of the canton, accused Köppel of being out of touch with the party's agricultural base - in particular as Gold Coast suburbanites "don't have their livelihoods impacted by changing weather patterns" the way that farmers have to increasingly worry about things like drought.

Add in this, you have the party seeming to be occasionally schizophrenic on the issue - the Geneva UDC recently introduced legislation to replace all of Geneva's busses with electric ones by 2025; and half of the UDC's own electorate feeling the party isn't doing enough to address climate change according to a recent poll.

Anyway, by the looks of things - it seems that the party is going to follow the Köppel line and double down on opposing action against climate change over the course of the campaign. Whether that works or not, I don't know (probably depends on the weather over the next two months...); but I think it does reflect a party that is ill at ease with itself, and unsure about where to go, over an issue that has climbed to the top of the political agenda this year.

The party has also ramped up the internal issues in recent weeks - we've seen an Aargau minister sacked for incompetence; an MP arrested for trying to bring cocaine into parliament; another MP doxing a teacher, and being forced to apologise, because the teacher, correctly, allowed Muslim kids to take the day off for eid. They usually have a very impressive electoral machine, and resources that the other parties don't available to them - but probably need to sort out a lot of the existing mess over the next couple of months; the fact they haven't even managed to get opposition into the EU framework agreement to the top of the politica agenda is probably a good reflection of this.

* anyway, clearly, the point of this is not to win over voters from other parties, especially the leftist ones, but to convince people who otherwise wouldn't be voting in October to actually turn out. Long story short, turnout in any single vote is very low normally, but over the course of a parliament, the vast majority (80%ish) of people will vote in one referendum or another. Therefore, each party has a substantial number of potential supporters who, much of the time, don't bother. "Winning" therefore depends on motivating your sympathetic-occasional-voters that this time it is worth bothering

[parochial boy]

From Neue Zürcher Zeitung and political geographer Michael Hermann, a political matrix type chart mapping every canton on the political spectrum based on the way it votes in referendums. Arrows indicate how the canton has moved between 1990 and 2018


Some of the particularly noticeable shifts include the rightward swing of Ticino, and in the Tax haven cantons of Zug, Schwyz and Nidwald. On the other hand, the secularisation (among other demographic changes) of the francophone catholic cantons of Fribourg and Valais has moved them much further to the left than they used to be. And lol at Jura for being so left wing that it is literally off the charts.

Also worth relativising the apparent left-shift of Romandie as whole. It certainly moved well to the left in the 1990s as the fall out of the 1992 EEA accession referendum alongside a sense of cultural and economic alienation that the region experienced as a result of its economic crisis in the 1990s. In recent years though, the Röstigraben effect has been closing, in part down to the economic boom in the Lake Geneva region as wll as the beginning of a left shift in the urbanised German speaking areas that has really started in the last few years. Based on both polling and cantonal election results, any left-shift in the elections in October are likely to occur in particular in German Switzerland.

[Former President tack50]

So Ticino (and I guess Italian Swiss in general) are the #populists of Switzerland?

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

How do the Romansch vote?

[parochial boy]

So Ticino (and I guess Italian Swiss in general) are the #populists of Switzerland?

Well,yeah, populist is a good way to describe the way Ticino votes. Although it doesn't really fit a "Global trends" type analysis as it isn't poor, isn't particularly working class and isn't "left behind" - and the area that has swung right the hardest is the largely urban south of the canton (centred on Lugano), which is a financial services centre. The real, real story when it comes to Ticino is the resentment of cross border commuters (and the rise of the Lega, who actually own a large swathe of the local media, and therefore set the agenda). I mentioned in a previous post, but a combination of free movement and Italy's economic issues have really not been managed well down there - there is a pressing issue with Italian employers simply relocating over the border from Italy to take advantage of Swiss employment laws, but still only offering Italian salaries. Which Italians will take out of desperation, but where you literally can't afford to live in Switzerland on a salary of chf2,000 a month.

You can see an element of the same effect in Geneva and Schaffhausen, which have a similar story of cross border commuters, but not as extreme as France and Germany are better off than Italy, and Ticino has the added element of it's proximity to the huge population centre that is Milan.

About half of the country's Italian speakers are actually Italian immigrants or their children who live outside of Italian-Switzerland, which makes it hard to generalise about "Italian speakers" as a whole

How do the Romansch vote?

From what I recall, slightly to the left of rural Swiss-Germans - because of their reliance on public support and funding to keep the language alive (eg the more romanche speaking districts of the Grisons; Surselva and the lower Engadine rejected the the abolition of the TV licence by the widest margin in the country last year). But they're still pretty rightwing as they mostly live in rural areas that are pretty assimilated with German Switzerland

[mileslunn]

So Ticino (and I guess Italian Swiss in general) are the #populists of Switzerland?

Well,yeah, populist is a good way to describe the way Ticino votes. Although it doesn't really fit a "Global trends" type analysis as it isn't poor, isn't particularly working class and isn't "left behind" - and the area that has swung right the hardest is the largely urban south of the canton (centred on Lugano), which is a financial services centre. The real, real story when it comes to Ticino is the resentment of cross border commuters (and the rise of the Lega, who actually own a large swathe of the local media, and therefore set the agenda). I mentioned in a previous post, but a combination of free movement and Italy's economic issues have really not been managed well down there - there is a pressing issue with Italian employers simply relocating over the border from Italy to take advantage of Swiss employment laws, but still only offering Italian salaries. Which Italians will take out of desperation, but where you literally can't afford to live in Switzerland on a salary of chf2,000 a month.

You can see an element of the same effect in Geneva and Schaffhausen, which have a similar story of cross border commuters, but not as extreme as France and Germany are better off than Italy, and Ticino has the added element of it's proximity to the huge population centre that is Milan.

About half of the country's Italian speakers are actually Italian immigrants or their children who live outside of Italian-Switzerland, which makes it hard to generalise about "Italian speakers" as a whole

How do the Romansch vote?

From what I recall, slightly to the left of rural Swiss-Germans - because of their reliance on public support and funding to keep the language alive (eg the more romanche speaking districts of the Grisons; Surselva and the lower Engadine rejected the the abolition of the TV licence by the widest margin in the country last year). But they're still pretty rightwing as they mostly live in rural areas that are pretty assimilated with German Switzerland

For Romansch, what type of language services do they get.  Can they take Romansch as first language in school and is it compulsory in Grisons to take it as a second language as Ireland requires everyone to study Irish Gaelic?  I assume they all speak other languages, but which ones do they study as I heard the fact some German speaking cantons put more emphasis on learning English as a second language over French and/or Italian has upset some, otherwise focus on communicating internationally not with other parts of the country.

[parochial boy]

So Ticino (and I guess Italian Swiss in general) are the #populists of Switzerland?

Well,yeah, populist is a good way to describe the way Ticino votes. Although it doesn't really fit a "Global trends" type analysis as it isn't poor, isn't particularly working class and isn't "left behind" - and the area that has swung right the hardest is the largely urban south of the canton (centred on Lugano), which is a financial services centre. The real, real story when it comes to Ticino is the resentment of cross border commuters (and the rise of the Lega, who actually own a large swathe of the local media, and therefore set the agenda). I mentioned in a previous post, but a combination of free movement and Italy's economic issues have really not been managed well down there - there is a pressing issue with Italian employers simply relocating over the border from Italy to take advantage of Swiss employment laws, but still only offering Italian salaries. Which Italians will take out of desperation, but where you literally can't afford to live in Switzerland on a salary of chf2,000 a month.

You can see an element of the same effect in Geneva and Schaffhausen, which have a similar story of cross border commuters, but not as extreme as France and Germany are better off than Italy, and Ticino has the added element of it's proximity to the huge population centre that is Milan.

About half of the country's Italian speakers are actually Italian immigrants or their children who live outside of Italian-Switzerland, which makes it hard to generalise about "Italian speakers" as a whole

How do the Romansch vote?

From what I recall, slightly to the left of rural Swiss-Germans - because of their reliance on public support and funding to keep the language alive (eg the more romanche speaking districts of the Grisons; Surselva and the lower Engadine rejected the the abolition of the TV licence by the widest margin in the country last year). But they're still pretty rightwing as they mostly live in rural areas that are pretty assimilated with German Switzerland

For Romansch, what type of language services do they get.  Can they take Romansch as first language in school and is it compulsory in Grisons to take it as a second language as Ireland requires everyone to study Irish Gaelic?  I assume they all speak other languages, but which ones do they study as I heard the fact some German speaking cantons put more emphasis on learning English as a second language over French and/or Italian has upset some, otherwise focus on communicating internationally not with other parts of the country.

In Graubunden, Romanche is one of three official languages (and individual communes can have it as a unique language), so in theory it should be on the same footing as German and Italian - so you could communicate with the government in and stuff.

Outside of Graubunden, it basically doesn't exist. In terms of schooling, in Graubunden, I believe it is the individual communes choice as to whether to make Romanche the language of instruction, or to treat it as a foreign language (and in practice that basically follows the handful of communes where the language is still the majority language). There is a complicating factor, though, in that Romanche is not really one, but a handful of dialects - and the standardised version isn't really what people speak.

For language teaching in the rest of the country, yes there has been an ongoing controversy about some cantons dropping French as the first foreign language for English (and vice versa, English replaced German as the first foreign language in Geneva when I was at school). As it stands, in most cantons, by the time you finish primary school you would have started learning both English and French or German (and of course, Swiss-Germans generally have to learn Hochdeutsch before they even start with English of French).

Honestly, the "controversy" is far more something blown up by the media than a thing that your average guy on the street worries about. Everyone knows that English is a more useful language - and, well, there are far more English speakers than German speakers in Geneva and Lausanne (although the opposite isn't true to quite the same extent in Zurich, Bern or Basel).

In practice, everyone learns far better English than German or French. On average a Swiss-German would struggle to string more than a few sentences of French together, but will very likely speak very good English. The French-Swiss tend to be worse at foreign language overall, but still usually speak much better English than German. English inreasingly tends to be the lingua franca when people communicate across the language border.