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

[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.

[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

[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.

[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.

[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

[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.

[parochial boy]

As we are gently rolling into election campaign mode Opération Libero, have announced they will be joining in the campaign by supporting "progressive, inclusive, internationalist and ecology minded" candidates in every canton. Previously, Libero have faced criticisms over their alleged proximity to the Green'Liberals*, but they will be doing this on a non-partisan basis and have already selected a list of 6 lead candidates, from each of the major parties (PS, PLR, Greens, Green'Liberals, PDC and the PBD - who it is probably slightly optimistic to call a "major" party these days) except the UDC (who would have thought?).

That said, they candidates they have selected are a little bit contradictory, which could lead to in level of incoherance in the way they campaign. For example it includes the ultra-europhile that is Nicola Forster (Green'Liberals/ZH), but also the likes of Arber Bullakaj (PS/SG), who like the Socialist party as a whole, has been reticient on some of the free movement provisions in the EU framework agreement. Likewise Sophia Buchs (PDC/GE) is a staunch supporter of introducing paternity leave, whereas Vera Stiffler (PLR/Graubunden), is very much opposed.

On that theme, a key campaign theme that is emerging is that of the "législature perdue". Referring to the PLR-UDC right-wing majority that tried to pass a number of unupopular reforms which were then voted down at referendums. Meaning that we are in exactly the same place as we were four years ago on increasingly pressing issues like healthcare costs, pensions or EU relations.

the UDC also held their annual conference this week, and have knuckled down the attacks on the left - accusing them of "climate hysteria", "wanting to tax us to oblivions" and noticeably "wanting to sell the country out" by signing the framework agreement. These are all logical campaign themes, meat that will get the base to turn out.

However, what is unusual is the degree to which the UDC are following the agenda; having spent the last 30 years setting it. Even if still offering the most right-wing answer to everything, they are now having to talk about health insurance, taxes or the climate; all of which are uncomfortable territory for the party. It was particularly noticeable that the only thing they could think to say about immigration was blaming it for "traffic jams and urban sprawl"; which is a very muted level of rhetoric compared to where they used to be.

Edit - also SRF interactive map showing the results of every federal election since 1975 by commune. Watch the map turn UDC green.

*The very fashionable Green'Liberals, seeing as Tamedia, the media conglomerate who own the Tages-Anzeiger, 20 Minutes/20 Minuten and half the countries local papers, seem to have unofficially thrown their support behind the centrist party.

[parochial boy]

It's kind of quiet with the summer vacation and all, but parties have been slowly finalising lists and apparentements/listenverbindungen ahead of October. I might write a bit about the specific situations in some of the cantons I find more interesting / know more about (ie Romandie, Zurich, Aargau and have nothing at all to say about, say, Thurgau); but the general situation at the moment seems to be a pretty mechanical renewal of all the Green/PS/minor lefty alliances - whereas the PLR and UDC have had much less success in renewing the alliances they had in 2015 (notably in Schaffhausen, where the Green Liberals ruled out a renewal of the 2015 alliance that almost took the PS's seat; all but guaranteeing that the left will keep one of the canton's two seats this year).

In various other news - on the right, the UDC Romand recently announced their support for major investments in Solar Power, as a "real solution" against climate change. On the face of it, making support for green policies part of their campaign seems somewhat contradictory considering the national parties rather explicit refusal to engage with the theme; but the UDC in French Switzerland are much more moderate than their German speaking equivalents (reflecting the local political realities, as all the parties do). Or perhaps they are just hoping that their electorate isn't paying attention, who knows?

On that theme, poor old Albert Rösti made a campaign visit to the Grütli meadow (very symbolic location in the Swiss national mythology); where the media refused to engage with his themes and pestered him with questions about the climate. Eventually he had to admit that, No, he isn't a climate denier; Yes, he does believe in man made climate change - but you will never protect the climate unless you protect Switzerland first (?) - and that nationalistic policies were vital to protect the environment and Switzerland's natural heritage, which the Red-Greens, by the way, would sell off to the EU the first chance they got.

As mentioned earlier, the UDC are in a bit of a bind with this issue, as their ideology runs straight into the interests of farmers - the party's historical base - who are really suffering with the changing weather. According to data released last week, Switzerland has already warmed by 2°C in the last century, and is warming twice as fast as the world average; leading to major implications for the already struggling agricultural industry.

Anyway, as always, a bit of comic relief coming from Romandie. PDC Vaud Conseiller National Claude Béglé made a recent trip to North Korea, and to the horror of his own party, and the amusement of everyone else, decided to tweet about what a wonderful society it was, and how well off the locals seemed to be. The latest development is that he is insisting that he has not gone insane, and meant what he said.

Likewise, notorious gobsh!te and anti-french firebrand Eric Stauffer has announced (another) political comeback after he was ejected from the Geneva parliament last year; remains to be seen what form this will take as no-one, even former allies, wants to be seen in the same room as him at the moment.

[parochial boy]

Likewise, notorious gobsh!te and anti-french firebrand Eric Stauffer has announced (another) political comeback after he was ejected from the Geneva parliament last year; remains to be seen what form this will take as no-one, even former allies, wants to be seen in the same room as him at the moment.

And, he's now appearing on a list allied with the PBD. Which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. An anti-everything loudmouth allied with the single most milquetoast party on the entire political spectrum. It's hard to even imagine they have anything in common, aside from a shared sense of despair.

PBD normally get less then 1% in Geneva anyway, so rip Stauffer.

[parochial boy]

Um, good point (just googled, 90% hydro or nuclear). I thought is might have something to do with the plan to come out of nuclear energy by 2050. But I just watched an interview with Céline Amaudruz (Geneva UDC president) that mostly consisted of her saying " we don't want any more taxes" (which is what the PLR have been proposing after their miracle about-face on the issue) and "we are the world leaders at green transition".

So, uh, I think this is mostly just a panicked response to losing control of the agenda...?

[parochial boy]

Overall, the biggest thing to look out for is how the Greens and the CVP/PDC do. If, and it no longer seems like a long shot, the Greens do beat the PDC, that is going to have massive ramifications for how the Federal Council is structured. The Magic formula is still seen as more or less applying (2 people from the top three parties, one from the fourth). But if the fourth party changes, it is going to make the Federal Council elections in December an enormous bumfight.

Going party by party is probably the easiest way to summarise. So

UDC/PLR: Seem to be heading towards their worst result in decades. In part because they have lost alot of the old big hitters (Brunner, Freysinger; Maurer has to toe the line as he is in the federal council; Blocher is still around but looks increasingly out of touch). But mostly because of changing issue salience. Their pet topics of immigration and the EU have dropped well down the agenda; and things like healthcare, pensions and especially climate change; on which they have nothing useful to say, have climbed up it. They are trying to make the EU framework agreement* their major campaign theme - but it isn't really taking off at the moment, principally because very few people have even heard of it.

PS/SP: Were doing well, especially in German Switzerland up until the beginning of this year; on the back of issues like healthcare costs and pensions and transport infrastructure. This year hasn't been great so far, mostly this is because of voters jumping over to the Greens in the wake of the hot weather and the climate strikes (the Greens and the PS traditionally share the same electorate...); but they have also had some internal disputes over the EU framework agreement and between moderates and leftists (the former being wildly europhile, the latter expressing concerns about some of the free movement provisions in the agreement), which has meant a few big hitters defecting to the GreenLiberals in Zurich. They will probably end with about the same score as in 2015 though, based on cantonal election results from earlier this year; although there is a risk they lose out in the senate because a few big hitters in usually conservative cantons (Pascal Bruderer in Aargau most notably) are retiring. As Switzerland normally has a huge incumbency bias, losing the incumbents in those sorts of places will make them extremely hard to keep hold of.

PLR/FDP: Looked like they were going to be big winners up until the start of the year; but the climate issue, and their completely confusing u-turn on the issue, has hit them somewhat. They're also struggling in urban areas, but also suburban ones which are increasingly turning left, which led to them making surprising losses in some of the cantonal elections earlier in the year. In Romandie, which is where they are strongest, and have done the best in recent years, they are currently struggling with a corruption affair involving a member of the Geneva government; which has deeply damaged their creditability. So likely to make a small loss at the moment.

PDC/CVP: Are struggling for broadly structural reasons. They are still identified as the Catholic party, and despite attempts to reposition themselves as the "family values" party still don't have much of an identity. The current president tried to move them to the right, but eventually lost out against the sheer inertia that keeps the party broadly in the middle. They may have also pissed of much of their base by spending the last 4 years as de facto allies of the Socialists against the PLR/UDC majority. Expect them to lose a bit more this year, with a potential risk of actually falling behing the greens in the popular vote - even if they keep more senators.

Greens: Flying high largely thanks to the climate issue. They made massive gains in cantonal elections in German Switzerland earlier in the year, and have been gaining constantly in Romandie for the last 3 years or so. The hot weather this summer helps them too - and if they get over 10%, or even beat the PDC, they will start to make a serious claim for a Federal Council seat.

GreenLiberals: Have been polling well, but aside from their result in Zurich in March, actual election results haven't necessarily corroborated that. The climate issue also helps them, but as the most visibly pro-EU party they would also stand to benefit from the framework agreement climbing up the agenda. They should make gains this year, but probably only to a limited extent outside of their usual heartlands.

BDP/PBD: Struggling principally because Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf is no longer around, and they don't really have any other selling points. They have moved more and more to left over recent years, at the moment seeming to be somewhere vaguely left of the GreenLiberals. Scored a media coup with the campaign line "boring but good" earlier this year. Although an alliance in Geneva (where they are irrelevant) with the firebrand right-wing populist Eric Stauffer has made that line seem a bit ironic - and led to outraged and horrified reactions by the national PBD leadership, who have announced that they will reject any application by Stauffer to join the party. Overall they will probably be wiped out outside of Bern, the Grisons and Martin Landolt's seat in Glarus.

Of the minor parties - the religious ones basically have the same electorate they always have. The regionalist right populists (Lega in Ticino and MCG in Geneva) are in a similar situation to the SVP. With the MCG, it is exacerbated by the ongoing saga with ex-president Stauffer, and they will probably lose their only seat. The various far left parties have vague hopes of winning seats in Zurich, Geneva and Vaud - as well as holding on to their one in Neuchâtel. Although in each case it will be difficult. In Zurich, the Altnerative-List is too small outside of the city itself; in Geneva and Vaud they are handicapped by the age old tradition of infighting between the Trots (SolidaritéS) and the Marxists (the Parti du Travail/Parti Ouvrier Populaire); and in Neuchâtel, they need to be able to keep in front of the surging Greens in order to hold the seat.

To add to all of that, Swiss parties are allowed to "join" their lists with other parties, so that seats get allocated to them on the basis of the combined score of all their lists**. The Socialists-Greens and minor far lefties have mechanically joined their lists across the board this year.

The "Centre" (GreenLiberals, PDC, PBD and the Evangelical Party) had announced an intention to do the same - but it hasn't worked out in practice, in part because there are very few cantons where more than one of those parties is relevant. Eg PDC are big in Geneva or Valais, but none of the others are; GreenLiberals are big in Vaud and Bern, but none of the others are. So there isn't much benefit to an alliance. Add to that, there have been a few instances of Centrist parties joining the left (GreenLiberals in Graubunden) or right (PDC in Geneva) as they would stand to gain more from doing so.

The PLR and UDC haven't had much success in renewing alliances either this year (eg, hasn't happened in Vaud or Neuchatel), for various reasons - ideological differences being to big, or the UDC feeling that it doesn't benefit them.

So all in all, the absence, or presence, of apparentements/Listenverbindungen may benefit the left this year.

*basically the EU has got fed up of the Swiss bilateral arrangement, and told the Swiss they need to come to a more formal arrangement - or else

** And beyond that they can "sub-join" lists, which is why you have the phenomenon of parties presenting several lists. For example, a party might stand a "Main" list, "youth" list, "seniors" list and "migrants" list all in the same canton,  in order to give voters a better choice of candidates, or to attract certain demographics to turn out. As these lists are all "sub-joined" it doesn't actually matter which one you vote for, as the party would win seats on the combined total votes cast for all of their lists. Best example of this is the PDC who are standing 9 different lists in Aargau this year.

[parochial boy]

The UDC, even on a bad year, still manage to be at the centre of attention with a controversial new poster



Showing the Swiss apple being "infested" by worms coloured to represent the EU but also the other parties; Greens, Socialists, PDC and, notably, the UDC's usual allies of the PLR. Translation is "worms for our apple? No thanks!", while the German version roughly translates as "should the left and the nice guys ruin Switzerland?"

Pretty obviously, the poster has generated lively reactions, and is in the tradition (indeed a move back to) the controversial posters for which the UDC is famous. However, having said that, it is interesting that the focus has changed somewhat; usually, these sorts of posters are directed at stirring up fears about foreigners, whereas the target is now actually other parties.

It may work, but at the same time, smells of desperation on their part. As in "we know you don't care about this issue, but we are going to carry on banging on about it over and over again". The risk is, people don't understand, or care, about the framework agreement at the moment - which inherently means the UDC's electorate aren't motivated to turn out this time. So scare tactics may not work on an issue that is vague and abstract, but could end up mobilising an anti-UDC vote (as well as ruin prospective apparentements with the PLR). In that respect, even a number of UDC hardliners have expressed their concerns over the poster.

[parochial boy]

Posting principally for my own interest, but I just stumbled on https://swissvotes.ch/, which has a comprehensive dataset of ever referendum ever held. Including detailed results & maps, but also which parties campaigned for what, the federal council position and so on...

Canton of Zurich is also voting on Sunday on whether to accept the corporate tax reforms that were passed at the national level in May. That is, each canton now has to accept it's own tax rates (theoretically) without the old loophole that let companies not pay taxes on if the bulk of their revenues raised outside of Switzerland. Other cantons may be holding votes, but I only realised this was going on when the voting material turned up, and haven't bothered to look in any more detail.

Most of the parties have also released details of their election campaign budgets. The PLR have the biggest fund, with about CHF3.5m (that's the same in USD); followed by the PDC with CHF2m and the PS with CHF1.5m. The Greens have a fund of just CHF180k - although these are all numbers for the national parties; cantonal and local parties, as well as individual candidates themselves will contribute their own funds; with UDC (ex-MCG) Roland Zacharias leading the pack with the intention to spend about CHF200k of his own money on failing to get elected in Valais.

Notice that the UDC haven't released any figures. The party have a hush-hush, slightly dodgy trust fund in canton Zug (where else, lol), with an unspecified level of funds and unknown source... Not suprisingly campaign finance transparency has become a fairly major issue as of late, with a number of cantons (including that progressive bastion that is, erm, Schwyz), having passed referendums that would force parties to disclose their funding and sources.

[parochial boy]

No good reason, other than a general cultural wariness of "change", but much more importantly is an institutional structure that tends to delay changing things.

For example, gay marriage has had overwhelming public support for a while now (including from the evangelical churches).

The legislation was already introduced to parliament in, get this, 2013. It only finally went through the parliamentary consultation stage earlier this year, with unanimous support (well, except for the usual suspects). That delay itself is a function of the cantonal system, parliamentary calendar, and the fact that MPs are theoretically only part timers. The final legislation will now be put off until after the election, and once it passses it will inevitably get challenged and go to a referendum, which probably won't happen until 2021. That all means the whole process taking basically 8 years from start to finish

[parochial boy]

Oh, and the Question Jurassienne is back in the news again today, after the high court of the canton of Bern upheld the prefecture of the Jura Bernois's decision to annull the result of the 2017 referendum where Moutier voted by a 3% margin to leave Bern join the canton of Jura. So at the moment, it looks like Moutier is staying where it is.

This evening has seen a big protest among secessionists demanding, as a minimum, that the vote be reheld. The saga continues. (I feel there is some sort of a point to be made about Brexit here, or cancelling referendums, or whatever. Because we're really showing how things should be done with this one *cough*).

[parochial boy]

New SRG/Sotomo poll, and it has actually happened, the Greens are now polling in front of the PDC



Everything else is as was (and obligatory warning about Swiss election polling) - but wow if this winds up actually being the case in October. tabs here (the actual voter movements are worth paying attention to, backing up the idea that the Green/GLP gains and the SVP losses are essentially made up of non-voters)