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

[parochial boy]

Result coming in right now. Seems like we're heading to that situation in the multinationales responsables. A clear majority of the cantons saying no, but based on the current Tamedia/LeeWas projection, a bare majority of 50,4% the population voting Yes. Ouch.

Absolutely huge Röstigraben too, this time - 60%+ Yes votes in most of Romandie (Jura at 69% yes, it's just too beautiful for this country ) and only to German cantons voting Yes. Ticino voting Yes too; it's not right wing the way people think it is

Current maps on the RTS liveticker

The war material vote seems to be going down ~43%-57%, which is a pretty solid score all things considered

Ticinese #populism

Fick small German cantons for overturning the "Latin alliance" majority.

Eh, they were always going to be what they were going to be. The real disspointment is places like the Basel suburbs and Valais, which often vote to the left of the country, but this time... didn't.

Either that or we just need to split Vaud into 4 different cantons, and make Uri and Glarus half cantons of each other.

[Estrella]

https://twitter.com/viktorgiacobbo/status/1333037534021099520

[Estrella]

Have there been any notable initiatives in the past that won the popular vote but lost the, uhm, electoral college? (or vice-versa, if it's mathematically possible at all)

[parochial boy]

Have there been any notable initiatives in the past that won the popular vote but lost the, uhm, electoral college? (or vice-versa, if it's mathematically possible at all)

This is the second time in history, once before, in 1955 the initiative to "protect tenants" was rejected despite a 50,2% Yes vote.

Anyway, confirming the farce - more or less final results courtesy of SRF


The War Materials finishes with 42,5% Yes. Geneva, Neuchâtel, Jura and Basel-Stadt say Yes, everywhere else No.

[CumbrianLefty]

Until today I did not even know there was an "electoral college" as far as Swiss referenda were concerned.

[Good Habit]

Until today I did not even know there was an "electoral college" as far as Swiss referenda were concerned.

Well, there isn't really an "electoral college" - the analogy to the American EC in Switzerland would be that the Members of the Federal Council, the (anually rotating) president, and the judges of the Federal court are elected by both houses of parliament in joint session (called Federal Assembly), and thus every canton has a similar structural vote share as in the US EC.

BUT - there are two types of referenda on a national level - if both houses of parliament agree on a new law, opposition can demand a popular vote by collecting 50k signatures in a given time. (This is called a facultative referendum)  And the  proposal only becomes law if it receives a majority in the popular vote.

But initiatives (not started in parliament) only can demand a constitutional amendment.

Constitutional amendments  (irespective if they got proposed by the government/parliament or popular initative) always need to be approved by a majority of BOTH the popular vote and the cantons (that is, the popular vote in a majority of the cantons). This gives a disproportional weight to smaller cantons in the mountains. (Although some of the smallest are 4 of the 6 so called HALF cantons (split for historical reasons), which only count for 1/2 when calculating the majority (and only have ONE member in the "Ständerat"(Senate) instead of the usual TWO.

 

[parochial boy]

You could make the argument that the Ständemehr is worse than the electoral college because at least the EC makes some effort to be proportional whereas Uri (population 36'000) counts as heavily as Zürich (pop 1'500'000). Even with the half cantons, the two Basels are only half cantons, and they are middle of the table in terms of demographic weight. Between them, the smallest 12 out of 23 can block an initiative, despite having only 15% of the population.

The principle reason that the idea was brought in was the Sonderbund war. It was a kind of consolation to the conservative rural catholic cantons to protect them from the demographic weight of the urban, industrialising, radical Protestant ones back in the mid 19th Century (like everything in Switzerland, it's about trying to balance the interests of different social groups). Like with the electoral college, you can ask how relevant that is in this day and age - lots of emotional leftists currently calling it into question this evening.

So now we have the Federal Council and the double majority becoming sore topics, lets add in the Conseil des États once Beat Rieder and friends block gay marriage and you've got the full house.

With that, and the perceived failure of the cantons over keeping Covid under control, it's not exactly been a wonderful year for federalism.

[Good Habit]

You could make the argument that the Ständemehr is worse than the electoral college

And, of course, your quite right with that statement - I didn't do the math before, but using an EC winner takes it all method for the "Ständemehr" would have seen the "Konzernverantwortungsinitative" approved with 131 to 115 EV.

OTOH, passing a constitutional amendment in the US is even worse...,. (3/4 of the states), and getting anything done in the EU even more so (single state veto to most issues...) - but thats not a big consolation...

[Never Made it to Graceland]

That's horrific. I'm not sure how a change could happen but it needs to happen soon.

[parochial boy]

And it happened, the Conseil des États today voted in favour of marriage equality by a 22 to 15 margin, and also to give lesbian couples access to PMA. Goes back to the Conseil National to be formalised, but it's now as good as done - and the final tidying up should happen this month. Now we just get to wait and see if we have a refererndum.

That's horrific. I'm not sure how a change could happen but it needs to happen soon.

A few ideas I've seen in the press in the last few days include a 5% margin overriding the Ständemehr, giving "extra" votes to the latin cantons (terrible idea, yikes), or requiring a 2/3 majority of cantons to override the popular vote. Although, as various clever clogs have pointed out, changing this means changing the constitution, which would require a double majority in a referendum - or at least some of the right wing cantons voting against there interests. (it's not impossible though, an amendment coming through parliament would have a chance of winning some of the less right wing of those cantons).

That said, as much as this is a pretty raw emotional topic right now - it's once in 65 years. I mean, there have probably been 100-150 votes since 1955 where this hasn't wound up being an issue. n all likelihood, considering it is as rare as it is, people will move on. The potential issue is that, now that the Greens are "unjustly" in opposition, that might incline more left wing protests votes (as happened with the UDC in the period running up to 2015). And... given we have now pretty much had it confirmed that a left wing initiative would probably need 54-55% to get over the cantons hurdle, would potentially mean more of these close results in initiatives arising.

For example, right now we have the Glacier initiative (for net zero carbon emissions) that is getting a similar sort of grassroots support that the responsible multinationals (people flying flags from their apartments and stuff) did and should come to a vote in 2022-24; and the initiative "pour soins infirmiers forts" (for stronger nursing care) most likely next year, ie fresh Covid memories. Both of these would seem, from the outset to be capable of mobilising a big left wing support... and of running into the same hurdle.

[parochial boy]

One last post for 2020. Probably. But - Guy Parmelin (UDC) will be elected president of the confederation on Wednesday, already decided. In a year where EU relations are likely to be hot topic, we get an UDC member who supported membership of the EEA as president. He has the reputation of being a little bit gaffe prone - for instance accidentally implying that self-employed workers seeking help during the covd shutdown were "lazy", and is famously bad at languages. Even his pronouncements in French are occasionally eye-brow raising, so should be fun.

We also officially get a winemaker as president. Makes a change from the lawyers and bankers you get running other countries.

Then, no sooner is the last campaign over, but the campaign for the 7th of March referendums is underway. On the agenda:

1. Referendum on the Free Trade agreement with Indonesia - a referendum launched by environmental campaigners with the principal theme of being arouds opposition to palm oil

2. Referendum on the Electronic Identification law - launched by the left, against the creation of a (optional) e-ID that would be used to access purchases and services online. Opposition is on privacy bases, but principally the fact that these eID's would be managed by the private sector and there is little faith in their ability to ensure adequate data protection.

3. Popular Initiative on banning facial coverings in public - ie the "Burqa ban" ie "The Minaret ban redux" ie "the UDC stirring up the base with an initiative on something that literally no-one wears". Will be a fun one, especially as a few notable figures from outside the UDC have signed up in favour of the iniative - notably including Géraldine Savary, an important PS figure and ex-Conseillère aux États from Vaud, on feminist grounds. It's an initiative, but of the kind of thing that did pass during the UDC's golden years, a few years ago it would have been difficult to imagine how you would even forge a majority against it, so it could be an interesting indicator of whether mentalities have changed as much as has been made out.

[Former President tack50]

Here are my guesses and you can tell me how wrong I am

Referendum on free trade: Succeeds somewhat narrowly, but not necesarily because of environmentalism but rather on protectionist grounds. Expect this to suddenly overperform in post-industrial and conservative regions of Switzerland and underperform in cities

Electronic Identification Law: Fails very easily, with the left and right united against it (for the right, expect the usual conspiracies about 5G Bill Gates-Soros microchips or whatever). Breaks 70% opposition

Burqa ban: Against the instincts of the political class, this succeeds by a surprisingly large margin (high single digits or more). If there is one common trend in European politics lately is that you never bet against the anti-immigration position winning and that anti-muslim positions are arguably the most popular positions to take. This is also a reason why the far right is winning in the first place literally everywhere in Europe.

[parochial boy]

Haha, I actually have no genuine idea how things could go - before the September votes I though probably one would pass and 4 would fail, but it wound up the other way round; it's incredibly tricky to try and predict how people are going to react to issues that they have never thought about before coming to the table. Generally, I would wait until the first polling comes out, and then basically throw it all in the trash as opinions can change so quickly. But what I would think is that

Free trade - just an amazing contradiction isn't it? People who like "openness" are also the ones most concerned about the environment. It's an EFTA free trade agreement too, so there's that whole "opinion of European integration" dynamic in play to make things even worse. But I think you'll be right about patterns, the conservative country side and wealthy liberal susburbs will vote Yes; with a big No vote in the cities and Romandie and the decision being made in the suburban and exurban areas. It feels like it would be close, which probably means that it winds up a completely one sided 60-40 type score.

That said, it doesn’t seem like there is a huge deal of grassroots enthusiasm on this - from what I’ve read, a few of the environmental NGOs and the left don’t particularly want to get involved. Which doesn’t bode well for the opponents of the law
 
Electronic ID - Seems like it has a good chance of failing on privacy grounds, but could break heavily in either direction based on one side making an effective campaign. I think this is a classic "I never, ever even consider this type of issues until we have a referendum on it". But if only one if four people downloaded the Corona app, then how will you get a majority to vote in favour of having an online profile.

Burqa ban - Instinctively you'd think this one would pass. There probably isn't a single European country where it wouldn't pass, but... Remember it's an initiative, and not a single one of those has passed in 6 years now. And the far right absolutely hasn’t been winning in Switzerland in recent years. In particular the UDC's last few initiatives were all pretty disastrous for them. They failed to get even 40% on restricting immigration, on foreign judges and on deporting foreign criminals in recent years - this is a going to a good test of the idea that these days a good 50-60% of the population will instinctively vote against an UDC proposal, regardless of what the content is.

 Support for Burqa bans at the cantonal level can also be highly unpredictable - for instance, Ticino* and St Gallen introduced them with comfortable margins but Zurich, Solothurn and Glarus have all rejected similar bans in the past, and the latter two are very definitely not on the liberal side of the political spectrum. So there are a lot of crosswinds, and this could very well wind up being about a lot more than just what the topic of the referendum actually is.

* Somewhat hillariously, Ticino "face covering ban" has so far been used almost exclusively to prosecute football fans - Ticino is the least Muslim canton in the country, and most of its muslims are Kurdish or Albanian in origin and not particularly inclined to dress that way. So the number of women wearing a full face veil in Ticino is essentially zero.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

Swiss parliament just passed a law to legalized same-sex marriage and will permit transgender people to change their legal gender identity. It has to go to a vote next year before it can be full implemented but that's all but guaranteed to pass.

[Never Made it to Graceland]

Swiss parliament just passed a law to legalized same-sex marriage and will permit transgender people to change their legal gender identity. It has to go to a vote next year before it can be full implemented but that's all but guaranteed to pass.

Cool, gays can get married before they get evicted! Mission accomplished. Neoliberalism.jpeg

[parochial boy]

Swiss parliament just passed a law to legalized same-sex marriage and will permit transgender people to change their legal gender identity. It has to go to a vote next year before it can be full implemented but that's all but guaranteed to pass.

Cool, gays can get married before they get evicted! Mission accomplished. Neoliberalism.jpeg

Not really, tenants' rights is one of those areas where Switzerland is actually pretty left wing. It is extremely, extremely difficult to evict a tenant.

As in, you need to go through the courts, prove the tenant is not able to pay the rent and that you have not been able to agree a payment plan. It takes years as a process.

[parochial boy]

Calendar of electoral events for 2021:

Votations
7th March
13th June
26th September
28th November

Cantonal Elections
Solothurn - 7th March
Valais - 7th March
Neuchâtel - 18th April
Fribourg - 7th November

Not the busiest of years, but the three Romand elections could be interesting. It was at these elections 4 years ago that the first signs of a Green surge started to appear in Romandie (two years before Greta) - so it'll start to be possible to see whether to what extent the Greens will hold on to the 2017 gains, especially in Neuchâtel and Valais.

[parochial boy]

There is also, actually, a special election in Geneva on the 7th March. To replace Pierre Maudet, of the three-years-and-still-running free trip to Abu Dhabi scandal fame. He is standing as an independent, having been kicked out of the PLR, for his own replacement, but I can't see him managing it as he is widely despised in the canton. A unique achievment given that Geneva politicians very rarely get beyond the status of being completely anonymous.

Also standing are:

Cyril Aellen (PLR - backed by the PDC)
Fabienne Fischer (Greens - backed by the Socialists)
Michel Matter (Green Liberals)
Yves Niddeger (UDC)
Morten Gisselbaek (Parti du Travail)
Olivier Pahud ("Evolution Suisse")
Yann Test (PBD)

askip the cantonal sections of the PBD and PDC have not yet merged, even though they have at the federal level. Still weird that they are getting behind different candidates though.

Anyway, obvious big potential suspense here is whether the Greens can grab a second seat, and in doing so turn the governing majority over to the left. The Greens are currently flying high in what is probably their most naturally friendly canton. They were already the largest party in Geneva at the Federal Elections in 2019, above a PLR who have been thoroughly discredited by the whole Maudet saga.

Matter also probably has an outside shot at the seat. He is a Conseiller National, so has pretty solid name recognition; but also is the sort of centre-right social liberal profile who could appeal to the Rive Gauche smug-enlightened-millionaire set.

Yves Niedegger is also a well known figure. Alongside party vice-president Céline Amaudruz, he forms the more right wing, and er, rather less bright half of the Geneva UDC's duo in the Conseil National.

[parochial boy]

Some first polling out for March from tamedia - with the headling being the burqa ban starting out with a head start.

It is 63% Yes, to 35% No, which... well.... let's put it this way, No Billag (abolish the TV licence), deport foreign criminals and the foreign judges initiatives all lost between 12-14% from the first poll to the final result. If the UDC find a bit of their old magic, they can win this. But... don't bet your house on either result just yet is what I'm saying.

In any case, there has been essentially no campaign so far. I haven't seen a single poster, had nothing through the door, very little media coverage. There's a lot to go.

The other two, as predicted, starting out close, and with very little opinion formation.

E-ID is 45% Yes - 47% No (vive la unholy left-UDC alliance against it).

Indonesia free trade deal is 41% Yes - 39% No. 20% undecided is potentially the highest I have ever seen

In other polling, GFS.Bern released there after analysis of responsible multinationals.

Confirming what we already knew, a big gender gap (43% Yes among men and 57% among women) as well as a huge age gap. Over 60% of 30-40 year olds and nearly 2/3 of the under 30s supported it; dropping to less than 40% support among seniors.

Somewhat interesting though is despite the controversial support of the churches for the initiative, people signed up with a church (ie who pay the Kirchensteuer, not necessarily attend church) rejected the initiative, while the unaffiliated supported it by over 60%.

Finally, in some Covid news, big controversy as South African billioniare and president of Geneva based luxury (jewellery, I think?) megcorporation Richemont Johan Rupert got himself vaccinated. Except he is 70, too young to be vaccinated yet, and in fact took a private jet from South Africa (without quarantining) to canton Thurgau in order to get the jab.

How did he manage this? Well, Thurgau, being tremendously right wing, handed their vaccinations contract to a private hospital chain called Hirslanden, and, well, it just so happens that Rupert is a key shareholder in said chain.

Obvious outrage across the board (ex-UDC president Thomas Aeschi is blaming the Socialists, of course), but it's a nice little display of how fücked up our private healthcare system can be. Thurgau, being more or less the only canton to have chosen the private route in order to solve this absolutely huge logistical and public health challenge is, you'll never believe this, currently the worst canton when it comes to vaccine coverage. Only 0,7% of the population has been vaccinated as of yesterday, compared to around 2% countrywide.

[parochial boy]

Not politics at all, but linguistic demographics, but it interested me.

From the latest release from the Federal Statistics Office a total of 68% of the population regularly use two or more language. 30% use at least three on a weekly basis.

Overall, one in three people live in a multilingual households (counting Alemannic and German as the same language). The most widely spoken languages at home are Swiss German (57%), French (28%), High German (16%) and Italian (8,8%). English is hot on the tail of Italian, with 7,5% using it as a home language. In total, one in two people, and 76% of the under 25s now use English on a weekly basis.

The other interesting remark is that, ever best by minority insecurities, the French speakers live in a constant state of fear of the loss of the status of French in the country. Not entirely unfounded as English is now clearly in much wider use than French in German Switzerland (the same applies in reverse though). Despite this though, French speakers have been gaining as a share of the population more or less constantly since the 1970s - 23% of the population claiming it as a first language now, compared to 18% fifity years ago. In comparison, German and dialect speakers have dropped from 66% to 62% in the same time frame.

or:

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Not politics at all, but linguistic demographics, but it interested me.

From the latest release from the Federal Statistics Office a total of 68% of the population regularly use two or more language. 30% use at least three on a weekly basis.

Overall, one in three people live in a multilingual households (counting Alemannic and German as the same language). The most widely spoken languages at home are Swiss German (57%), French (28%), High German (16%) and Italian (8,8%). English is hot on the tail of Italian, with 7,5% using it as a home language. In total, one in two people, and 76% of the under 25s now use English on a weekly basis.

Waiting unhappily for the day English surpasses Italian

What other "foreign" languages are most spoken after English? Albanian? Arabic? Turkish?

[parochial boy]

Not politics at all, but linguistic demographics, but it interested me.

From the latest release from the Federal Statistics Office a total of 68% of the population regularly use two or more language. 30% use at least three on a weekly basis.

Overall, one in three people live in a multilingual households (counting Alemannic and German as the same language). The most widely spoken languages at home are Swiss German (57%), French (28%), High German (16%) and Italian (8,8%). English is hot on the tail of Italian, with 7,5% using it as a home language. In total, one in two people, and 76% of the under 25s now use English on a weekly basis.

Waiting unhappily for the day English surpasses Italian

What other "foreign" languages are most spoken after English? Albanian? Arabic? Turkish?

In order - Portuguese, Albanian, Serbo-Croat and Spanish. Turkish is actually losing speakers at the moment, it's an older immigration and mostly integrated these days, so fewer and fewer kids speaking Turkish. I suspect Tigrinya may be on the way to becoming the top non-European language, certainly Eritreans are rapidly on the way to becoming the top non-European migrant group.

Italian being surplanted isn't for tomorrow, but it's future doesn't look so bright I think. Nearly one in two Italian speakers is a foreigner (read, an Italian) and mostly living outside of Ticino - so will either probably return to Italy someday, or if they don't, have children who prefer French/German. Whereas, with English, well most English speakers are Swiss nationals already - not US/UK immigrants; and if, say a French and a German speaker get married, there is a good chance they are going to adopt English as a home language (English is actually already ahead of Italian among people aged under 45). So it's going to keep on progressing.

[Astatine]

Not politics at all, but linguistic demographics, but it interested me.

From the latest release from the Federal Statistics Office a total of 68% of the population regularly use two or more language. 30% use at least three on a weekly basis.

Overall, one in three people live in a multilingual households (counting Alemannic and German as the same language). The most widely spoken languages at home are Swiss German (57%), French (28%), High German (16%) and Italian (8,8%). English is hot on the tail of Italian, with 7,5% using it as a home language. In total, one in two people, and 76% of the under 25s now use English on a weekly basis.

Waiting unhappily for the day English surpasses Italian

What other "foreign" languages are most spoken after English? Albanian? Arabic? Turkish?

In order - Portuguese, Albanian, Serbo-Croat and Spanish. Turkish is actually losing speakers at the moment, it's an older immigration and mostly integrated these days, so fewer and fewer kids speaking Turkish. I suspect Tigrinya may be on the way to becoming the top non-European language, certainly Eritreans are rapidly on the way to becoming the top non-European migrant group.

Italian being surplanted isn't for tomorrow, but it's future doesn't look so bright I think. Nearly one in two Italian speakers is a foreigner (read, an Italian) and mostly living outside of Ticino - so will either probably return to Italy someday, or if they don't, have children who prefer French/German. Whereas, with English, well most English speakers are Swiss nationals already - not US/UK immigrants; and if, say a French and a German speaker get married, there is a good chance they are going to adopt English as a home language (English is actually already ahead of Italian among people aged under 45). So it's going to keep on progressing.

How does the future look for Romansh? IIRC, just about 50'000 people still speak it, right?

[parochial boy]

Not politics at all, but linguistic demographics, but it interested me.

From the latest release from the Federal Statistics Office a total of 68% of the population regularly use two or more language. 30% use at least three on a weekly basis.

Overall, one in three people live in a multilingual households (counting Alemannic and German as the same language). The most widely spoken languages at home are Swiss German (57%), French (28%), High German (16%) and Italian (8,8%). English is hot on the tail of Italian, with 7,5% using it as a home language. In total, one in two people, and 76% of the under 25s now use English on a weekly basis.

Waiting unhappily for the day English surpasses Italian

What other "foreign" languages are most spoken after English? Albanian? Arabic? Turkish?

In order - Portuguese, Albanian, Serbo-Croat and Spanish. Turkish is actually losing speakers at the moment, it's an older immigration and mostly integrated these days, so fewer and fewer kids speaking Turkish. I suspect Tigrinya may be on the way to becoming the top non-European language, certainly Eritreans are rapidly on the way to becoming the top non-European migrant group.

Italian being surplanted isn't for tomorrow, but it's future doesn't look so bright I think. Nearly one in two Italian speakers is a foreigner (read, an Italian) and mostly living outside of Ticino - so will either probably return to Italy someday, or if they don't, have children who prefer French/German. Whereas, with English, well most English speakers are Swiss nationals already - not US/UK immigrants; and if, say a French and a German speaker get married, there is a good chance they are going to adopt English as a home language (English is actually already ahead of Italian among people aged under 45). So it's going to keep on progressing.

How does the future look for Romansh? IIRC, just about 50'000 people still speak it, right?

It's been pretty much holding stable at 40'000 speakers over the last decade, although based on sampling so impossible to be entirely sure, but it might indicate that the decades long decline has at least come to an end.

The problem is basically the same that it always has been - the remaining hold Romanchophone hold outs in the Surselva and Lower Engadine are deeply rural, and among the only parts of the country with actually declining populations.

So it's structurally weakened becuase they're numerically small; living in two non-contiguous; swamped and essentially required to use German as a vehicular language within Graubünden; and speak 5 pretty different dialects to begin with.

From what I've seen, there have been big efforts to actually support the language within Graubünden. So lots of kids, even German speaking ones, go to bilingual medium schools and the like. Which means there are a decent number of people able to speak the language, but not too many who speak it as a first language. To be honest, at the moment, it's only really surviving because it's seen as a part of the national heritage and is worth fighting to keep alive. That is a legitimate and worthy cause, but failing any real concrete economic or social incentives for people to speak it, it seems pretty much doomed to continue it's decline. By which I mean, the existence of jobs that use Romanche, a local economy that extends beyond farming or mid-sized ski resorts, or a cultural scene that extends beyond the odd 30 minute subtitled news magazine shown on weekday afternoons on the German or French public TV channels,

[parochial boy]

And here is GFS.Bern / SRG SSR's first polling for the March votes



Burqa ban up 56% to 40%, which, well in normal circumstances, if an initiative is only at 56% in the first round of polling, it means it's going to fail.

Interestingly though, the crosstabs in both polls so far have showed a higher support for "Yes" in Romandie than in German Switzerland, when normally it is the Germans who back these sorts of things in huge numbers. For example, the minaret ban was rejected in French Switzerland even while comfortably passing federally. I would, as a matter of course, not read too much into these - crosstabs are crosstabs after all, and it is very regularly the case that the linguistic region voting patterns indicated by the crosstabs don't wind up being the case at all.

That said, it isn't totally incidental - the PLR Vaud, ie the largest party in the largest francophone canton, are supporting the initiative, even while the federal party is against it. French Switzerland is also significantly more secular and irreligious than German Switzerland (35% claim to have no religion in Romandie, meaning it is on the verge of passing Catholicism as the principal "religion"); and there is generally less tolerance of overt displays of religion, including overt christian practices like church bell ringing in the west of the country. Perhaps an impact of the overbearing influence of France's culture and media discourse.

(and fwiw, although muslims in Switzerland are generally well integrated and not particularly religious, the French suburbs just over the border with Genevado have, to be blunt, all of the socioeconomic issues and the demographics that French banlieues as a whole are infamous for, which does have an impact on let's say, Geneva's already complex relationship with it's neighbours. It may be the most woke city in the world, but it's also the most racist city in Switzerland).

Good starts for the other two votes, although I'd still suggest they could tip either way. The UDC in particular are tearing their hair out over the E-ID law. Bluntly speaking, the membership do not like the idea, and the leadership want it. They're supposed to be deciding on their campaign positions today, except they mysteriously left the E-ID law out of the list of issues that the party delegates were supposed to decide on.