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

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?
March 28, 2024, 05:05:19 PM
News: Election Simulator 2.0 Released. Senate/Gubernatorial maps, proportional electoral votes, and more - Read more

  Talk Elections
  Other Elections - Analysis and Discussion
  International Elections (Moderators: afleitch, Hash)
  Re: Swiss elections and referenda - New Federal Councilor(s) election 7 December (search mode)
Pages: [1] 2 3 4 5 6 ... 11
Author Topic: Re: Swiss elections and referenda - New Federal Councilor(s) election 7 December  (Read 52472 times)
parochial boy
parochial_boy
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,114


Political Matrix
E: -8.38, S: -6.78

« on: January 07, 2019, 03:32:02 PM »
« edited: November 02, 2022, 11:47:37 AM by parochial boy »

The other thread seems to be stuck on a reference to the last election, which is silly as we're now in the year of the next federal election.

Anyway, lot's on in 2019 - apart from the federal elections, there will be the usual four sets of referenda; and the following cantonal elections, which will make for a busy spring:


Appenzell Ausserrhoden - 10th February
Zurich - 24th March
Lucerne - 31 March
Basel-Landschaft - 31 March
Ticino - 7 April

Appenzell Innerhoden should also have some, but I don't know when; and in any case, elections there are non-partisan and the Landsgemeinde makes them less important.

Out of this year's elections, Zurich is by far the most interesting. Not only is it the biggest canton, but it also tends to be a reliable bellweather for how the federals will go.

Other than that, Lucern might (hopefully) give the PS a chance to win back an executive seat in Central Switzerland; and Ticino is unique enough to be worth following.

If I can work up the energy, I might also write up something on the federal election. I've already written loads about the general state of the parties; but might focus on some of the cantons I'm more familiar with. On top of that, despite the general trends in cantonal elections, it is worth pointing out that in all likelihood, the Conseil National and Conseil des Etats will swing in different directions. The Socialists and Greens in particular have a very difficult task ahead of them in the Conseil des Etats, whereas they should gain somewhat in the Conseil Nationa; for various reasons.

10th February referendum
Anyway, to start the year, the first referendum of 2019 is the the popular initiative "contre le mitage". Which translates as something like "against urban sprawl".

In practice, it would restrict any further urban expansion by banning any zoning of non-built up areas. Which would have to be compensated by the de-zoning of existing zoned areas; to prevent any further expansion of Switzerland's urban surface. The primary context for this is the massive, and ongoing, urban sprawl that now extends across much of the Swiss plateau. while Switzerland is actually not that built up compared to other European countries (7.5% of the country is built on, compared to an EU average of 11%), there is a pretty obvious reason for this (the mountains...). This means that the plateau, and in particular two separate "lines", one spreading from Lake Constance through Zurich to Basel and Bienne; and another along the shores of Lake Geneva between Lausanne and Geneva; have become almost continuous urban and suburban sprawl. You could easily travel from St Gallen to Bienne; or between Geneva and Lausanne without ever losing site of a new villa development.

No need to explain the many issues with sprawl; but the opposition to the initiative largely centres around the massive population pressure in Switzerland, with a rapidly growing population and (extremely) high housing costs that need to be managed. Supporters of the initiative counter that focus should be on densification of existing urban areas - as over 60% of the population live in individual villas-with-gardens.

Two polls have come out so far. GFS.Bern showing 64% for Yes; and Tamedia showing 54% supporting the initiative. Fairly typical stuff for early polling on an initiative, there has been almost no coverage of the vote so far, and support will drop very quickly once the campaign starts. Both polls showing very little of a language divide (nature/conservationism being an issue that traditionally motivates Swiss Germans more than Romands), and a fairly predictable partisan divide - with the exception of a high level of support for the initiative among UDC voters, down to their status as the "countryside" party no doubt.
Logged
parochial boy
parochial_boy
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,114


Political Matrix
E: -8.38, S: -6.78

« Reply #1 on: January 29, 2019, 03:36:47 AM »

Zurich has its cantonal election on the 24th of March. My German is... significantly less good than it should be, so this might be a bit vague, but Zurich is important, so.

Zurich cantonal elections always hold some degree of the interest on the basis that, not only is Zurich by far the largest and most important canton in the country; but it also hold its cantonal elections in in the same year as federal elections; and historically, the results of Zurich cantonal elections have provided a pretty decent indicator of the way things are going to go at the federals. This year however, that relationship will probably be weaker than it normally is; the combined left will, I suspect, do better in Zurich than at the national level, which is down to the specific nature of where the left have been picking up over recent elections. Specifically, there has been a strong left trend in Zurich city, which swung heavily to the left at the municipal elections last year, meaning left wing parties now hold 69 out of 125 seats (they have only ever won that many once before, in 1931), and the left in control of 6 out of the 9 executive seats. The city makes up over a third of the canton's population, so is pretty influential. But added to that, Zurich's expansive suburbs and urban sprawl has shown a pretty consistent pattern of trending leftwards over recent years. The reasons for that aren't particularly unusual either; on the one hand, the cost of living in Zurich has led to a number of "urban" types moving to smaller nearby towns, but Zurich's sprawl has become increasingly urban in nature - meaning that factors that often make cities left wing; the need for solid public amenities and infrastructure, access to public transport, rising housing costs and especially health insurance costs and so on now increasingly apply further out from Zurich itself.

Zurich is clearly more than just Zurich city itself, really you can split the canton up as follows:

Zurich city - arguably the only "real" city in Switzerland, it has nearly always been left wing (at least since the "Red Zurich" interwar years - industrialisation began quite late in Zurich itself due to the traditionally dominant guilds, who deliberately prevented upstart bourgeois types setting up businesses in the city so as to preserve their own power) but like many cities has moved left in recent years as it diversifies and becomes more educated. Contrary to the clichés, the gnomes tend to actually live on the gold coast along lake Zurich's Eastern shore.

The Lake Zurich sprawl - ie the Gold Coast on the north/east and the Silver Coast on the South/west, a long built up area inhabited by the rich and the upper middle classes. Very politically liberal (in the European sense) unsurprisingly, and generally home to a large portion of the people whose post-boxes are in Zug. One factor in Swiss politics is that, even more than is the case elsewhere, a substantial portion of taxes are collected and spend at the municipal level. Obviously, as Zurich is a big city, it has a higher cost base in terms of the infrastructure and amenities it needs to provide (as well as, like most cities, tending to be the destination of the more vulnerable members of society). This, of course means that Zurich needs to charge higher taxes, which its left leaning population tends to be more willing to pay, while those less enthusiastic about taxes tend to move out to the lakeside suburbs, which, with fewer costs, charge much lower municipal taxes. One particularly galling example being the CEO of mining giant Glencore (whose world headquarter are in Zug, because obviously...) who moved to the village of Rüschlikon, where his tax bill alone was apparently enough to allow the municipality to abolish taxes for the rest of its inhabitants. I'm not bitter, of course, but these parasites are perfectly happy to make use of all the amenities Zurich has to offer that they don't actually pay for.

The non-lake side sprawl - Particularly concentrated along the Limmat and Glatt river valleys, these areas tend to be lower income and immigrant heavy. This has in recent years been a very strong area for the UDC/SVP for, well, normal reasons. As mentioned above, alot of the towns in these areas; but also other small towns in the Zurich vicinity, and that are heavily influenced by there proximity to the city (eg Uster) swung quite far to the left in 2018.

The rest of the canton - As Zurich is big, it still contains a lot of areas that, while increasingly influenced by the city, are still either agricultural or small town industrial (eg Bülach) or exurban in nature (Affoltern Am Albis being a somewhat joke example of this). These areas are important, because they are very right wing. This is the heartland of the SVP, specifically, it is from these areas that Christoph Blocher sprung - and the reason that the Zurich wing of the SVP was able to drive the party as a whole towards the nationalist right. Even today, the outer areas of the canton are amont the most right-wing in the country; some of the only communes to actually support the November "self-determination" initiative are in the canton of Zurich; and the districts of Dielsdorf, Andelfingen and Hinwil all supported it with over 42% of the vote, levels that you only got otherwise in the typical nationalist heartlands like the Berner Oberland or Nidwald/Obwald (in contrast, not one single French-Swiss district voted over 35% Yes, there is still a language divide on this sort of thing).

Zurich is also home to Winterthur, the 6th biggest city in the country. It has a tendency to get completely forgotten about, which I will probably demonstrate by never mentioning it ever again.

As for the elections themselves, well, Swiss-German politics aren't as colourful as they are in Geneva, so there isn't very much excitement likely to happen. The current make up of the Regierungsrat is
2 PLR/FDP
2 UDC/SVP
2 PS
1 PDC

Of the 7, the UDC's Markus Kägi and the PLR's Thomas Heineger are both stepping down. No surprises, they should be replaced fairly comfortably by the relatively popular Thomas Vögel of the PLR and notorious twitter troll Natalie Rickli (uggh) of the UDC.

Beyond that, you can almost guarantee the 5 incumbents will be re-elected. Most at risk is the PDC's Silvia Steiner, reflecting the parties struggles at the national level; the PDC's decision to ally itself with the right should save her, but not without alienating a further segment of the traditionally leftish support base. Marcus Fehr of the PS could also face some difficulty, as his relatively right-lean on immigration has already led to the Greens and (far-left) Alternative-Liste refusing to endorse him. On the flip side, the very left-wing Jacqueline Fehr (also PS, no not related) might struggle to win enough cross over support to be re-elected. But in each of these cases, the risk is... tiny.

The Greens appear not to be even trying as they have nominated a local councillor who, while a good speaker, has literally no profile. Other than that, the three centre parties (PBD, the Evangelicals and the GreenLiberals) have formed a (very heterogenous tbh) alliance, but without the PDC none of them have the support base to get someone elected, much as the GreenLiberals - who are standing on a very explicitely pro-EU line - might like to pretend otherwise

The Kantonsrat is currently
UDC - 55
PS - 36
PLR - 31
GreenLiberals - 14
Greens -13
PDC - 9
PEV (Evangelical party) - 8
PBD - 5
Alternative Liste - 5
EDU/UDF (a small right wing christian party, currently in the news for launching a referendum against a new law that is designed to make homophobic attacks hate crimes like racially motivated ones are) - 5

There won't be any major turnover in the overall bourgeois lean on the parliament, but the left should do well. This is in line with the national, and local trends mentioned above - but on top of this is the unpopular legislation passed by the cantonal parliament that will lead to a partial privatisation of the water supply. This has gone to a referendum on the 10th of February (the left parties as well as the GreenLiberals, PBD and the Evangelical party are all campaigning against the law). Opposition to this should motivate left wing voters to turn out, and hopefully give the left parties, who are making a big deal out of the issue, an extra boost on election day.
Logged
parochial boy
parochial_boy
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,114


Political Matrix
E: -8.38, S: -6.78

« Reply #2 on: February 10, 2019, 03:56:03 PM »
« Edited: February 10, 2019, 04:01:49 PM by parochial boy »

Results from the Referendum today - The initiative against urban sprawl was defeated by a 64% to 36% margin, which is about what was expected.

Support was actually slightly higher in French than German Switzerland by the looks of things, which isn't what the polls were suggesting. Unsurprisingly, the real divide was between support in the cities, and crushing opposition in the countryside.Le Matin have a map here.

The huge no vote in the Valais is in line with the way they have voted on previous such referendums - the construction industry is a huge part of the local economy, so attempts to restrain it tend to be very unpopular.

In some of the cantonal level votes -

Geneva passed a law restricting civil servants from showing religious symbols at work, with 55% support.

In a big bloody nose to the right, the water privatisation bill has failed in Zurich. Beaten 55-45%, with the "no" vote being a somewhat unusual alliance of Zurich city and rural areas against Zurich's suburbs. results here

Appenzell Ausserrhoden had elections for its government (the legislative ones follow on the 17th of March), which I had completely forgotten about. Elected were 2 PLR, 1 UDC, 1 PS and 1 independent, which is both exactly the same as the previous government and in any case those were the only 5 candidates who were standing.
Logged
parochial boy
parochial_boy
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,114


Political Matrix
E: -8.38, S: -6.78

« Reply #3 on: February 17, 2019, 08:28:26 AM »
« Edited: February 22, 2019, 04:22:20 AM by parochial boy »

Going back to Zurich, probably the most interesting thing to watch at the elections is how the PLR do. The media consensus at the moment is that they should be the party who will make the strongest gains at the Federal elections, largely off the basis of their stong performances in cantonal elections over 2017-2018.

However, the mitigating factor here is the laguage divide. Over October 2016 to May 2018, every Francophone canton (except Jura) had its cantonal elections, and each time, the PLR progressed. In German Switzerland though, the picture over that timeframe has been less clear, smallish gains in the likes of Bern, but stagnation in the small Central Switzerland cantons. But, because of the cantonal elections timetable - the elections in Romandie have a distortingly large influence on overall analyses. So, in that respect, Zurich will probably give some indication of how things are moving overall - better than what we have at the moment (and there is of course the danger that the PLR's weak response to the Maudet affair is going to damage it in Romandie come October).

Shamelessly copying David from the other thread, if you want to play "who should I vote for in Zurich", then www.smartvote.ch has the questionnaire - key highlight being that it maps your responses on a "Smartspider" that it compares to how candidates from each of the parties repspond to the same questions.

my own results were
SP - 89.1%
Greens - 87.7%
Alternative-Liste - 87%
Evangelical party - 68.3%
PBD - 62.5%
PDC - 59.0%
GreenLiberals - 51.8%
PLR - 28.5%
UDF - 26.0%
UDC - 8.0%
Logged
parochial boy
parochial_boy
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,114


Political Matrix
E: -8.38, S: -6.78

« Reply #4 on: February 17, 2019, 09:07:46 AM »
« Edited: February 17, 2019, 06:46:25 PM by parochial boy »

Briefly touching on one other upcoming vote, the Basel-Landschaft canton elections are on the 24th of March (as are the cantonals for the soulless theme park Lucerne, that I'll cover later).

BL split off from Basel City in the 19th century at a period of heightened tension between the rapidly industralising town of Basel and the still largely rural hinterland to its south. These days though, BL is actually mostly urban in nature. Much of the population is concentrated in the very urban communes that directly neighbour Basel itself, with the remainder largely concentrated in three areas of urban sprawl along the Ergolz, Birse and Rhine rivers, reason being that Basel (unlike all of Switzerlands other big urban areas) is not actually situated in the plateau, but in the western edge of the Jura mountain range, which limits the amount of land available for settlement.

As a result, Basel-Landschaft is one of the most left wing of the Swiss-German cantons, typically voting around the national average on referendums (and was actually the Greens best canton in 2015). It differs to Zurich's suburbs in being more prone to anti-immigrant, or socially reactionary politics (eg higher support for things like "no Billag"or limiting mass immigration); but also more supportive of left-wing economic policies (eg public health insurance or increasing Social Security). This in fact applies to the comparison of Basel and Zurich as a whole; Basel is still a more industrial and working-class city than Zurich, being dominated by a small number of employers in the pharmaceutical and chemicals industries (eg Novartis, Roche, Lonza, Syngenta); while Zurich is more oriented towards things like finance and academia - which reflects in both cities' voting habits.

Basel also has a certain reputation for smog and pollution, as a result of its chemicals industry, which sort of explains why the Greens do well in the region.

Within BL itself, there isn't much political diversity from one area to another - generally, the closer you are to Basel, the more left wing you are. The exception being the more right wing rural (and tiny) district of Laufen, that was historically a part of the canton of Bern, but in 1994 transferred to Basel-Landschaft as part of the settlement of the Question Jurassienne.

The current government is as follows:

Regierungsrat
PLR - 2
PDC - 1
UDC -1
Greens - 1

Landrat (which is elected by a slightly complicated system grouping 12 constituencies into 4 districts and then allocating seats to the constituencies based on their populations)
UDC - 26
PS - 21
PLR - 17
PDC - 8
Greens - 6
Evangelical party - 4
GreenLiberals - 3
AVP - 2
VI - 1
PBD - 1
Independent - 1

The 2 AVPs are ex-UDC and the VI and the independent are both ex-Greens.

For the elections themselves, the various ex-Greens and UDC's aren't standing, which should mechanically mean both parties progress, although the UDC will do well to not lose any seats in reality, and could face a battle to remain the largest party. Theoretically, BL could become only the third canton, alongside Basel-City and Fribourg, where the PS are the largest party. Three centrist parties, the PDC, PBD and GreenLiberals are also standing a joint list in three constituencies, although they will do well to hold up given that the overall political atmosphere in Switzerland is not particularly friendly to the centrist parties.

In the executive vote, the PLR's Sabine Pegoraro is not standing for re-election. While the other four incumbents should keep their seats, with the remaining seat likely to be a battle between the UDC and PS for a second spot (for the time being, the PLR haven't selected a candidate to Pegoraro's succession).
Logged
parochial boy
parochial_boy
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,114


Political Matrix
E: -8.38, S: -6.78

« Reply #5 on: February 22, 2019, 04:42:58 AM »

New Poll from Sotomo/SSR for the federal elections

UDC - 27% (-2.4% on 2015)
PS - 17.4% (-1.4%)
PLR - 17.4% (+1.0%)
PDC - 11.3% (-0.3%)
Greens - 9.5% (+2.4%)
GrenLiberals - 6.4% (+1.8%)
PBD - 3.3% (-0.8%)
PEV - 1.7% (-0.2%)

Usual caveats apply - it was an online poll advertised on the various SSR websites, so anyone could take part, and data was later adjusted to reflect demography, make you own conclusions... The fact that swings in Swiss politics tend to be pretty small also means that it's a bit harder to draw meaningful conclusions, given margin of errors and all.

Taking the poll at face value, it looks terrible for the PS, who would be expecting to gain ground based on cantonal elections results over the last couple of years. They seem to have lost ground to the Greens, who like the GreenLiberals, seem to be profiting from the recent attention the climate has been getting (the school strikes and recent freak warm weather, with some of the middle and high altitude regions recording their warmest ever February temperatures). GreenLiberals are consistently polling well these days, which I am a bit dubious about as that hasn't really been reflected in cantonal elections.

Highlight of the poll though, is the combined PLR/UDC score being down 1%, which should just about cost them their majority.

On the issues, immigration has dropped down 4th as the most important issue, after years at the top, behind EU relations (not necessarily a vote winner for the right any more, thank you Brexit), health insurance and the environment.
Logged
parochial boy
parochial_boy
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,114


Political Matrix
E: -8.38, S: -6.78

« Reply #6 on: February 22, 2019, 11:08:10 AM »

It has been varyingly an issue in the past. Especially when the UDC were emerging as the largest party, but didn't have their "fair" representation on the federal council; which wound up with a Referendum on having direct elections for federal councillors in 2011, which got rejected by about 75-25%.

So at the moment, now the UDC have their two seats, there is virtually no discussion about it - people tend to look at the political instability in other countries and compare Switzerland rather positively (or even look at the experiences of some cantons, Geneva basically, which have been through periods of instability as a result of electing highly polarised cantonal governments). Having said that, in the medium term, it is probably likely that the Christian Democrats will eventually drop behind either the Greens or some centrist formations (probably a GreenLiberal-PBD merger). When/if that happens it will probably generate its own crisis and call the magic formula into question. Unlike the Greens or the GreenLiberals, the PDC have their own specific constituency in Catholic and rural areas, so still might argue they have their own role to play in the traditional consociationalist model that the magic formula is.

As for what I think, this might be a bit rambling, but the thing is, any change to existing model; whether by directly elected federal councillors or "normal" coalition governments would probably be hugely disruptive to Swiss politics as a whole. Basically, at the moment, the model works because the executive exists as a separate entity from the parties that make it up. In terms of legislature or referendum campaigns, the Federal Council is supposed to be a united front, and the parties can have their own positions. Which is, for instance, why you can get the Socialists campaigning against pension reforms that were nominally passed under Alain Berset, the PS Social Security minister.

In a normal coalition situations, I think you would end up in a position where the parties had to follow the line set by the government; which would end up putting more power in the hands of individual political leaders. In turn, that would probably "personalise" the political arena far more, and lead to bigger swings in party support from one election to the other than is normally the case. Basically, the current model almost certainly weakens the level of attention people pay to politics, and to election turnouts in part due to a "why bother voting, you get the same government anyway" and "I've never heard of any of these people anyway".

As for whether I think that would be a good thing... on the one hand, it would make elections more interesting. But what is good about the current system as the relative independence of the parties from their leaders allows the parties to be more radical. Obviously, the natural state of Swiss politics is basically very small-c-conservative, lots of compromise, reluctance to change things... as, well it's the national character, but reflects a system where you need someone like Alain Berset to agree with someone like Ueli Maurer for anything to happen. But, being relatively independent of their ministers means the PS can stake out a much more left wing position, bring far more radical proposals on to the agenda (eg campaigning against things like Tax competition between cantons) and deliberately contradict their own ministers in a way that they otherwise wouldn't be able to in a normal system. Likewise, it also means that actual legislation can come from the Federal Council or either of the two parliamentary chambers, whereas otherwise it would be set top down from the executive. This gives far more ability for non-government parties to have influence (in fact, of the parties who have had the most success in passing legislation over the last 4 years, it is actually the PBD and GreenLiberals who have done best, reflecting their positions in the middle of the political spectrum).

And I quite like having one of the few non-crap SocDem parties in Europe to vote for, and one that can occasionally have big wins on quite radical things like passing Europe's strictest laws on executive pay.

And let's be honest, in Switzerland the PS would probably never get anywhere near government, and having the influence they have, under a normal system.

Sorry if that was a bit long.
Logged
parochial boy
parochial_boy
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,114


Political Matrix
E: -8.38, S: -6.78

« Reply #7 on: February 28, 2019, 04:23:50 AM »

Proving that whatever Britain does, Switzerland can do worse and less entertainingly; ex-Zurich Conseillère Nationale Chantal Galladé has defected from the PS to the GreenLiberals, claiming that the PS is to eurosceptic.

This is in the context of the PS, still officially committed to EU integration, opposing the new "framework agreement" with the EU on the basis that it requires Switzerland to loosen it's laws restricting the ability of employers to send foreign-based employees temporarily to Switzerland (the worry being that someone could get employed on, say, a German contract at a lower salary; but then end up doing their job entirely in Switzerland).

As with the other lot, Galladé has always been on the right of the PS, always been dissatisfied with its turn to the left under Levrat and so on... but it does show the complexity of the PS's own position with regards to EU integration.
Logged
parochial boy
parochial_boy
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,114


Political Matrix
E: -8.38, S: -6.78

« Reply #8 on: March 03, 2019, 09:01:50 AM »
« Edited: March 03, 2019, 11:10:58 AM by parochial boy »

This is cool enough that I thought it would be worth posting. Political Scientist has mapped every commune of Zurich's political habits on the basis of election and referendum results. The left-axis shows the commune's attitude towards state interventionism v market liberalism; and the y-axis shows it's attitude towards cultural issues (immigration, gay rights and so on...).

It is also colour coded, not by district, but by Zurich's cultural regions. For example, including all the Glattal (The Glatt river valley exurban sprawl to the north of Zurich) as one, rather than splitting it between the political districts of Bülach, Dielsdorf and Uster

So you can see, for instance, the wealthy Gold Coast in purple, which is on the right and low down the chart reflecting its relative cultural and excessive economic liberalism.

There isn't a lot to add to my ealier post, but some of the ones that I find interesting are the Oberland region, which varies widely along the cultural axis, a reflction of the split between the west of the region, including the likes of Uster, which is increasingly urban and progressive; and the rural East, which forms the canton's Bible Belt, and votes strongly for the two Protestant parties (UDF and PEV) as well as the UDC.

Also interesting is the pale blue Limmattal, the down river sprawl from Zurich, which is undergoing a degree of renewal after decades of industrial decline and an image of poverty and high levels of immigration. It seems fairly schizophrenic on the left-right axis; reflecting, one the one hand, a desperate need for infrastructure developments in downmarket areas like Schlieren; with a much more conservatice profile in some of the smaller, richer villages away from the river


Full article can be found in German here

In other Zurich news... not much, someone ripped down a poster of the UDF/EDU regierungsrat candidate near where I live. A despicable attack on our sacrosanct right to beat up poofters.

However, more amusingly in the Geneva and Valais news, Eric Stauffer, former leader of the anti-French populist Geneva Citizens' Movement, who in 2017 quit said party claiming it had been "hijacked by leftists" and went on to form his own party which then completely bombed at the Geneva cantonal elections, is back. This week, he claimed that he was joining the Valais (where he now lives) PDC and was planning to stand for election to the Conseil National in October. Cue the visibly shocked PDC Valais Romand politely telling him to eff off and that they wanted nothing to do with him. (Which is not a surprising response, aside from the completely different sets of values, if a gobsh**te like Stauffer is now a vote loser even in Geneva, he is not exactly going to win people over in the more normal parts of the country).
Logged
parochial boy
parochial_boy
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,114


Political Matrix
E: -8.38, S: -6.78

« Reply #9 on: March 03, 2019, 01:16:09 PM »
« Edited: March 03, 2019, 01:20:09 PM by parochial boy »

Add to that, the canton of Lucerne has it's elections on the 31st of March. The current government is

PDC - 2
PLR - 1
UDC - 1
Independent - 1 (Marcel Schwerzmann, basically a moderate UDC in practice)

and the parliament (PR by constituencies, one for each of the 5 districts) is
PDC - 38
UDC - 29
PDC - 25
PS - 16
Greens - 7

Lucerne the canton is, of course, most famous for the über-touristy desination of Lucerne itself - famous for its old buildings, alpine views etc, etc... But rather more importantly, Lucerne is a large town (the 8th in Switzerland) in its own right, and historically functions as the economic and cultural centre for all of Catholic Central Switzerland. In fact, it was Lucerne that was the capital of the Sonderbund during the secessionist war back in 1847.

As naturally follows, Lucerne has been a long standing PDC stronghold, and has been reliably conservative. This still holds in the outlying parts of the Canton. The Entlebuch region in particular, is remote, isolated and poor (or as poor as you get in Switzerland) is arguably the single most right-wing region of the country; while the Northern parts of the canton around Sursee and Willisau look increasingly like the rest of the Mitelland - exurban sprawl with people commuting long distances and receptive to right wing campaign themes.

In contrast, the actual city of Lucerne tends to lean left (as all large-ish) urban areas do; but economically speaking, it is worth noticing the degree to which it, like much of the canton, has come under the economic influence of Zurich. Lucerne is only 40 minutes by train from Zurich (and 20 from Zug), which makes it a popular commuter town.

In terms of the election - well it's central Switzerland, don't expect fireworks. The left would like to win a seat in the government, which they lack in Central Switzerland since the Greens lost their seat in Zug last October; but with both the PS and Greens standing separate candidates (and a surprisingly left wing GreenLiberal in Roland Fischer), there is likely to be too much vote splitting - and not enough crossover between the rather left wing PS and Green candidates with the public at large - to achieve this.

The Greens reckon the ongoing attention being paid to the climate will help them, especially their youth wing, pick up seats in the Lucerne City constituency; and beyond that, well, even the local media don't seem particularly interested. Expect a continuation of the trends that have been occuring in the rest of the country.
Logged
parochial boy
parochial_boy
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,114


Political Matrix
E: -8.38, S: -6.78

« Reply #10 on: March 06, 2019, 02:55:23 AM »

New Tamedia poll for the election in October (with changes on 2015):

UDC - 29.2% (-0.2%)
PS - 18.4% (-0.4%)
PLR - 15.9% (-0.5%)
PDC - 9.9% (-1.7%)
Greens - 9.6% (+2.5%)
GreenLiberals - 6.7% (+2.1%)
PBD - 3.9% (-0.2%)

Panic stations for the PDC! Especially as the other three government parties have all indicated they'd be open to letting the Greens onto the federal council should the unthinkable happen.

Other than both ecologist parties clearly gaining from the recent attention being paid to that issue, the real conclusion of the poll is that any actual swings are too small to be detected by a conventional poll. Which is standard stuff for Switzerland.

In other news, this week, Geneva has regularised the status of 2000 illegal immigrants. Out of apparently 13,000 people in an irregular situation in the canton, those who can prove they have lived there for over 10 years (or 5 years for families) have been given work permits and the chance to settle legally in the canton.
Logged
parochial boy
parochial_boy
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,114


Political Matrix
E: -8.38, S: -6.78

« Reply #11 on: March 10, 2019, 03:08:55 PM »

As of next weekend, there are 5 different cantonal elections over the course of 4 weeks. So might be worth a quick mention of the other two, Ticino and Appenzell-Ausserhoden

To begin with Ticino, holding its election on the 7th of April.

The current government, the "Consiglio di stato" is

Lega dei Ticinese (right wing populist, anti-frontalier) - 2
PLR - 1
PDC - 1
PS - 1

and the "Gran Consiglio" breaks down as
PLR - 24
Lega - 21
PLR - 17
PS - 13
Greens - 6
UDC - 4
Area Liberale (who have merged with the UDC - 2
Movimento per il Socialismo - Partido Operaio Popolare (the local wing of the Swiss Labour party) - 1
Communist Party - 1
Montagna Viva (localist party led by Germano Mattei, and ex PDC) - 1

Note that Ticino's executive has the particularity of being elected using PR, rather than the two-round majority-plurality system used in the rest of the country. The most notably result of this is it tends to allow more radically minded politicians on to the exectutive, as there is no need to get crossover votes from supporters of other parties. Hence the two Lega Consiglieri, for example.

Ticino's politics, are, well, in the modern era, mostly associated with xenophobia and support for right wing populism. Any referendum where the subject is immigration, or EU integration, or anything of the sort, will inevatibly see Ticino voting as far, if not further to the right than any other canton.

This has its own context, in particular, due to its history, there has always been an intense anxiety in Ticino regarding its relations with Italy; and a strong desire to stake outs its "separateness" from its souther neighbour, which has always translated into a scepticism of EU integration.

However, Ticino has not always been anti-immigrant, in fact, back in 1969, when the first of James Schwarzenbach's anti-immigration popular initiatives took place, Ticino actually rejected the initiative by the largest majority in the country. So what changed? Well, any look at contemporary Ticinese politics, and it's long, hard turn to the right cannot be separated from an issue that comes up a lot in Switzerland, that of the "frontalier".

As with all of Switzerland's border regions, Ticino attracts a huge number of daily migrant workers, who live in Italy but come to work in Switzerland, attracted by the higher salaries. in particular, since the various moves to increase free movement with the EU, this number has increased exponentially. This is a cause of resentment in much of the country, but the downsides of the frontalier experience have been much more obvious in Ticino. For instance, in other cantons with large numbers of frontaliers, Geneva especially, the frontalier workforce has often helped ease a demand for labour, with almost no knock on effect on local wages. In Ticino, however, in part thanks to Italy's economic crisis, the situation has been exploited much more, with worse outcomes.

As an example, a recent investigation found instances of employers in Ticino offering salaries as low as CHF1,000 a month - which is well below below subsistence level in Switzerland; but a not unusual salary in Italy. Essentially, employers have begun to unscrupulously take advantage of Italy's desparate unemployed workforce and Switzerland's relatively lax labour laws to essentially force Italians into working for low pay and with worse working conditions.

Of course, the obvious solution would be to introduce a minimum wage, which Ticino hasn't done, but instead it is the right wing populists who have taken advantage - in turn, helping drive the canton as a whole to the nationalist right, to the point where it votes for things like banning the burqa, despite it having a tiny Muslim population who largely consist of secular Kosovans anyway.

This cultural anxiety has also been escalated by two other factors; one being the large number of Swiss-Germans who have moved to Ticino for the sunnier, warmer weather; but refused to learn Italian or integrate with the locals as well as Ticino's declining status as the representative of Italian Switzerland. Principally as a result of immigration from Italy, only about 40% of Switzerland's Italian speakers are Ticinese, making them a minority in their linguistic community.

Anyway, to add to that, being, well, Italian; Ticino also has a proud history of byzantine party feuds and splits, most famously the 1980s Autonomous Socialist Party who quit the PS claiming it was two right wing. True to form, there are two separate far left lists standing this year, and two other rando "populist" lists that are essentially formed around single well-known-ish individuals.

The other election is Appenzell-Ausserrhoden which elects its Kantonsrat next Sunday.

Current breakdown is
PLR - 23
PUAR (independent, localist grouping) - 15
UDC - 12
PS - 9
PDC -5
PEV - 1

The Protestant and slightly less out-of-the-world-insane brother to Catholic Appenzell-Innerrhoden. You know, it gave women the vote as long ago as 1989, of it's own volition. Whereas the other Appenzell took until the 1990s, and even then only gave women the vote after it was sued by the federal government.

Good cheese though.
Logged
parochial boy
parochial_boy
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,114


Political Matrix
E: -8.38, S: -6.78

« Reply #12 on: March 12, 2019, 02:47:42 AM »

This is mostly just a copy-paste from something I wrote on AAD but

1. The first referendum is another one on the ongoing corporate tax reform saga. As a bit of context, the EU have said Switzerland needs to reform its corporate taxes, namely, drop the loophole that allows Swiss registered companies that earn substantially all of their revenue abroad to pay 0% tax on their profits. Back in early 2017, a proposition to close this loophole, and to make up for it, put through a huge cut in the corporation tax rate(s) (there are 3 corporation tax rates - as the federal government, cantons and communed all collect them) to about 12-13% was voted down in a referendum launched by the PS. (A seminal moment in some respects as it broadly coincided with the political turning point where the left started gaining and the UDC started losing).

Anyway, one of the reasons the 2017 reforms were rejected was because it would have meant an overall tax cut, to the tune of about CHF3.5bn a year, with obvious repercussions for social spending and the various benefits used to prop up household incomes. The latest reform is similar in format to the last, except that it is tied to an increase in AVS (Social Security) contributions to make up the shortfall. The idea being that this will safeguard the pensions system against any funding shortfall..The left (principally the Greens) have launched yet another referendum against this on similar concerns + now "the people" have to pay for a corporate tax cut.

2. A UDC referendum against a recent law making it harder to obtain semi-automatic weapons; introduced under EU pressure. Basically, it bans people from acquiring semi-automatic weapons which (I'm not sure what the technical translation in English is tbh) can hold over 10 bullets. If rejected, the risk isn't around open borders so much as Switzerland losing access to the EU's anti-terror database. This, obviously, triggers the UDC in just about every way possible because a) what could be more Swiss than GUNS! and b) Those awful foreigners telling us what to do again

I suspect both will pass. For the tax reforms, the key is that the PS have been reluctantly brought on side this time round, which removes a potential major player from the opposition; and in the other one, it's basically everyone vs the UDC, and those sorts of votes have tended to only go one way in recent years. Add in that in both cases, the federal council and the full weight of the establishment will be backing Yes votes.
Logged
parochial boy
parochial_boy
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,114


Political Matrix
E: -8.38, S: -6.78

« Reply #13 on: March 13, 2019, 05:59:59 AM »
« Edited: August 20, 2019, 04:58:19 PM by parochial boy »

Something of a Shock Poll from Tamedia ahead of the Zurich elections, which seems to show the PLR Regierungsrat candidate Thomas Vögel worryingly close to the Green's Martin Neukom. Vögel is credited with 42% of the vote, and Neukom is on 38%, which is within the margin of error. With Neukom starting from a much lower base in terms of public recognition, that could be worrying for Vögel, who was the hot favourite for the 7th seats.

The other 6 seats are predicted to be filled by the 5 incumbents and UDC's Natalie Rickli. The PS's Mario Fehr is in front, with 65% support (thanks in part to a large degree of crossover support from UDC voters - thanks to his record on immigration and asylum while in government). After that, it is Stocker (a relatively moderate UDC) on 54%, Walker-Späh of the PLR (54%), Silvia Steiner (PDC) 52%). The two more radical candidates, Jacqueline Fehr of the PS and Natalie Rickli have 49% and 44% respectively.  Rickli in particular could face something of a risk, as she has a deeply polarising public image.

In the Kantonsrat, the poll is in line with national polling, suggesting that the UDC will lose about 2% of the vote compared to 2015 (when they got 30%); the PS will drop 1.1% from the 19.7% they got in 2015; PLR will flatline at around 17.5% and the two ecologist parties will make big gains (GreenLiberals up 2.4% to 10% and Greens up 2.1% to 9.3%).

The more interesting side is the threshold game for smaller parties - as it (more or less) takes getting over 5% in any one constituency to get elected. The Alternative-Liste should be safe, thanks to their strength in Zurich City - especially in the historically downmarket and now thoroughly hipsterised Kreis 4/5 constituency where they are the 2nd largest party after the Socialists). Likewise, the two Christian parties shouldn't have too many issues thanks to their strength in the bible belt regions in the Oberland (Hinwil and Uster constituencies), as well as the personal popularity of the PEV candidates in the Säuliamt (Affoltern constituency).

It is much riskier for the PDC and PBD, whose support is more spread out. In particular, the PDC have declined in what used to be their heartland in the Limmat valley (Dietikon) and silver coast (Horgen), where they used to gain significant support from Catholic immigrants - dechristianisation and the rise of the UDC have led to a consistent decline in support in these areas, leading to a real risk that they drop out of the Kantonsrat all together.

In other news, the ever hardline Geneva PS has gone against the national party and will back campaign against the corporate tax reforms - to howls of outrage from the right. Interestingly, Geneva's high tax rates have led to an exodus of multinationals to lower-tax cantons, but the local economy is booming...
Logged
parochial boy
parochial_boy
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,114


Political Matrix
E: -8.38, S: -6.78

« Reply #14 on: March 17, 2019, 09:59:51 AM »
« Edited: March 17, 2019, 12:17:52 PM by parochial boy »

Also today, the canton of Vaud had the first round of a special election to replace Pierre-Yves Maillard, who has stepped down from his role in the Conseil d'Etat to take charge of the Swiss Trade Union Federation.

With the final results in the Socialst Rebecca Ruiz has finished far ahead of the UDC Pascal Dessauges (backed by the PLR), meaning the left should keep its executive majority and the UDC is still without a single figure in government in Francophone Switzerland. The race had been predicted to be very close (with some commentators even expecting Dessauges to finish in front, due to splits in the left wing vote), so the margin of victory is a pretty big surprise. Full results as follows

Rebecca Ruiz (PS) - 46.6%
Pascal Dessauges (UDC) - 37.6%
Marion Axel (PDC) - 6.3%
Jean-Michel Dolivo (EàG - far left) - 4.1%
Anaïs Timoft (POP - far left) - 3.3%

The far left once again proving it is its own worst enemy.

In theory, there should be a second round, but Dessauges has essentially no chance (especially if the two far left candidates don't stand), so it might not happen.

Vaud's official site has put together this map of results by commune:



Basically, it is metro Lausanne and the working class Jura-Nord Vaudois voting for Ruiz against the rural (but demographically booming) Broye and Gros-de-Vaud voting for Dessauges. This is a fairly typical map, but with some major shocks. For example, Ruiz winning in the upmarket resort town of Montreux, as well as the left candidates winning a combined 70% of the vote in Lausanne. Dessauges even fell short of a majority in the Broye; where the PLR and UDC won a combined 66% of the vote in the cantonal elections last year.

In fact, in all, Dessauges score was well below the 46% the two right wing parties won together last year - which seems to show that, more than anything, the UDC are still very much persona non grata even for right wing voters.
Logged
parochial boy
parochial_boy
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,114


Political Matrix
E: -8.38, S: -6.78

« Reply #15 on: March 17, 2019, 12:16:09 PM »

And results from Appenzell Ausserrhoden.

Note that, unlike elsewhere, seats are allocted to the candidates winning the most votes in each commune; with the exception of the largest commune, Herisau, whose 19 seats are distributed using PR.

PLR - 24 (+1)
Independents - 20 (+5)
PS - 9 (nc)
UDC  7 (-5)
PDC - 3 (-2)
PEV - 2 (+1)

The UDC also, shockingly, lost the race for mayor of Herisau. Not a good day for the UDC/SVP...
Logged
parochial boy
parochial_boy
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,114


Political Matrix
E: -8.38, S: -6.78

« Reply #16 on: March 18, 2019, 03:18:03 PM »

I couldn't actually say to be honest. The campaigns are only, very slowly, starting up at the moment - I've only seen one poster so far, and that's about the Corporate tax vote - which I suspect is going to be the one that gets more focus. At the moment, I would bet that the vast majority of people don't even know what the May votes are going to be about.

As for whether Christchurch will factor into the debate, well, there was a (more radical) proposition to outright ban people from keeping their military guns back in 2010, which was rejected something like 57-43. That was in the context of a bunch of high profile cases, like the mass shooting in Zug in 2001 as well as the panic about the high gun suicide rate in the early 2000s*; so even in the context of issues "at home" it didn't really push people to support some massive radical overhaul. Add in that the laws around firearms have been tightened up fairly susbtantially since the early 2000s, leading to a big drop in the level of firearm violence (the law that stopped militia members from keeping ammunition at home led to something like a 50% drop in gun suicides overnight). Basically, people don't really feel worried about gun violence here, it's a very different context to the culture war that you get in the US. It's not really something people ever think about. Christchurch has already dropped off the front page of the newspapers here, and the moves to tighten up the laws in New Zealand have barely even been mentioned in passing.

I think the referendum will be fought over the traditional "our culture/right to hunt/sport shoot" vs "Security/terrorism/EU co-operation" axis rather than by appealing to people's fears of gun violence.

*19 year old kid doing military service, away from home for the first time, feels isolated, depressed, lonely - goes home and blows his brains out with his military issue rifle. Not a nice story, but worryingly commonplace. Anecdotally, the number of people I know who have suffered from some level of depression during military service is kind of shocking
Logged
parochial boy
parochial_boy
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,114


Political Matrix
E: -8.38, S: -6.78

« Reply #17 on: March 19, 2019, 02:52:41 PM »

There will be no second round in Vaud, the right wing parties have come to the conclusion that they have no hope of overturning the PS's lead and so Pascal Dessauges has declined to stand - as has Axel Marion of the PDC. So Rebecca Ruiz is formally elected to the Conseil d'Etat.

In terms of fallout, the PLR/UDC have been stunned by the scale of their defeat. Throwing future co-operation between the two parties into doubt, as the alliance has so far failed to win back the right wing majority that was lost in 2011.

In fact, PLR Conseilère d'Etat Jacqueline De Quattro is resigning to stand at the federal elections,  there is a real risk that this could be another pick up for the PS (or the Greens, who might want their candidate to stand seeing as they ot 19% of the list vote on Sunday) unless the right finds some way of building a majority. If that seat goes as well, it would mean a 5-2 left wing majority which is, basically unheard of in Switzerland.
Logged
parochial boy
parochial_boy
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,114


Political Matrix
E: -8.38, S: -6.78

« Reply #18 on: March 23, 2019, 08:57:03 AM »

Slightly funny story which came out yesterday. Earlier in the week, as part of the ongoing EU negotiations, the Conseil National voted to up its EU contributions by a one of unconditional €1 billion payment.

What was strange about this, was that this uconditional payment was backed by the Europhile left and... the UDC.

Turns out, although they are refusing to admit it in public, that the UDC collectively chose the wrong button when it came down to voting; meaning that they supported the payment by accident.
Logged
parochial boy
parochial_boy
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,114


Political Matrix
E: -8.38, S: -6.78

« Reply #19 on: March 24, 2019, 12:09:28 PM »
« Edited: March 24, 2019, 02:26:47 PM by parochial boy »

Here are, an absolutely astonishing set of results from Zürich today:

Regierungsrat
elected
1. Mario Fehr (SP/PS) - 83.8%
2. Jacqueline Fehr (SP/PS) - 77.1%
3. Ernst Stocker (UDC/SVP) - 68.2%
4. Silvia Steiner (PDC/CVP) - 65.5%
5. Carmen Walker-Späh (PLR/FDP) - 61.1%
6. Martine Neukom (Greens) - 58.9%
7. Natalie Ricklie (UDC/SVP) - 56.2%
----
8. Thomas Vögel (PLR/FDP) - 53.0%
9. Jörg Maider (GreenLiberals) - 45.4%
10. Walter Angst (AL) - 39.6%
followed by Rosemarie Quadranti (PBD), Hanspeter Hugentobler (PEV), Hans Eggli (UDF) and an independent

Note that % are of ballots cast, and you get 7 votes per ballot, which is why they are all so high

Kantonsrat
UDC/SVP - 24.5% (-5.6%) | 45 seats (-9)
PS/SP - 19.3% (-0.4%) | 35 seats (-1)
PLR/FDP - 15.7% (-1.7%) | 29 seats (-2)
GreenLiberals - 12.9% (+5.3%) | 23 seats (+9)
Greens - 11.9% (+4.7%) | 22 seats (+9)
PDC/CVP - 4.3% (-0.6%) | 8 seats (-1)
PEV/EVP - 4.2% (-0.0%) | 8 seats (+0)
Alternative Liste - 3.1% (+0.2%) | 6 seats (+1)
UDF/EDU - 2.3% (-0.4%) | 4 seats (-1)
PBD/BDP - 1.6% (-1.1%) | 0 seats (-5)

Detailed results, including maps and all on Zurich's official website

So clearly, an absolutely awful day not just for the SVP, but for the right as a whole; and a fanstastic one for the ecologists.

For the SVP, it's kind of hard to emphasise just how bad this is. Switzerland has a huge pro-incumbent bias, and swings are normally tiny. So to lose over 5% (especially in a non-Geneva canton) just does not happen. Especially for the SVP. To put it in context, they haven't won such a small number of seats in Zurich since 1995, right at the beginning of the Blocher era; and what is particularly notable is the fact that today's losses have come pretty evenly from across the canton. If anything, they are worst in the generally lower income/less exciting suburbs and exurbs to Zurich's north and east (generally known collectively as the "agglo"), to the point that the PS actually overtook the SVP to become the largest party in Schlieren (!). It is also tempting to suggest that their vote held up best in the cities of Winterthur and Zürich. But that is because they had such a low base there to start with.

It has now been a couple of years that the SVP have been showing consistent losses in cantonal elections, but this seems to have actually picked up speed in recent months, if you look at the below par result in the foreign judges referendum, or the disasters in Vaud and Appenzell-Ausserhodden last week. More than anything, having seen their traditional bugbear of immigration fall away in terms of public importance, the SVP have recently decided to knuckle down on the euroscepticism as a way of gaining back votes - a tactic which led to them sending out a slightly deranged letter accusing the FDP and SP of "betraying the country" in the last days of the campaign. With, well, other concerns about EU relations coming up, that tactic seems to be backfiring.

Adding to this, it is an absolutely horrible set of results for the FDP. For the last 2 years, they have been held up in the media as the party set to make the biggest gains at the federal elections. But as I suggested earlier, this was probably an overinterpretation of a specific trend in Romandie. More than ever, elections in German Switzerland are not bearing that up. Add to that the fact that they have, basically for the first time ever, lost their second seat in the government and they suddenly have much less to feel optimistic about than they did a couple of months ago.

Obviously then, the two big winners of the election are the two ecologist parties. The Greens getting Martin Neukom elected to government is a massive shock, not just that, but he even defeated Natalie Rickli, one of the few politicians in the country who is actually a household name.  Both them, and the GreenLiberals, who campaigned on a very pro-European theme, and were possibly the most visible party throughout the campaign, have had their best results ever - obviously taking advantage of the climate issue being at the top of people's minds in recent months (with the climate strikes, last summer's heatwave and this winter freak warm weather).

For the SP, they will probably be dissapointed to have lost ground, given that they have been doing well in cantonal elections, and were the big winners at the municipals last yeat. But they will have suffered a loss of support to the Greens, for obvious reasons; and with the high-profile defection of Chantal Galladé to the GreenLiberals among other things, it has been a very difficult campaign for them. So in that, respect, only losing one seat, primarily thanks to a strong set of results in the left-trending Agglo, might actually count as something as a relief. Especially as they did much better than the FDP, who are publically targetting passing the SP at the federal elections.

For everyone else, AL gaining a seat is a surprise. They lost ground in there stronghold in Zürich city, but gained across the rest of the canton, which helped someone. The PBD are out of parliament, which isn't really a surprise while the PDC held on comfortably - although losing groud again, so there really isn't any cause for complacency.

Overall then, the joint left have 63 seats going into the new parliament, on the back of a combined gain of 4.7% of the vote (including the Labour party's 0.2%). The most they have had since 2003, before the GreenLiberals took a chunk of the Greens vote away.

The two right wing parties went backwards by an astonishing 7.2% combined. To put it into context, they only have 74 seats going into the new parliament. The last time their joint share was that few was 1971. Added to that, the SVP-CVP-FDP has lost the majority it had in the last parliament. This right-wing majority had passed a number of unpopular laws over its course, many of which (such as the water privatisation) were voted down at referendums - all of which will have contributed to their loss of popularity. Even with the UDF they are still short of a majority, which will mean a big left shift in terms of policy over the next for years.

So TL;DR - Completely shocking set of results by Swiss standards. Brilliant day for the ecologists, absolute nightmare for the right
Logged
parochial boy
parochial_boy
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,114


Political Matrix
E: -8.38, S: -6.78

« Reply #20 on: March 26, 2019, 04:50:46 PM »

Continuing fallout from the weekend has given the left a rare case for Schadenfreude: The PLR have turned on party president Petra Gössi, blaming the recent u-turn on climate change policy ("broadly on the balance, we think it might be worth considering if we should maybe launch and internal consultation to assess whether there may be some policies that we could adopt that would potentially look at that might address the alleged threat of so called "climate change"). Blaming this change in direction for their bad result (logically?). It's turning into a bad year for Gössi, who's already been in trouble for saying something along the lines of "oh those hot-blooded latins just aren't like us" in reference to Maudet not being kicked out by the Geneva PLR.

Within the UDC, Rösti has blamed to media for daring to cover the climate strikes. Whereas 30 years of blanket coverage on migration and reporting [every single crime committed by an Albnanian definitely didn't help them at all. Natalie Rickli went step further, and insinuated that the bad result was because the UDC's own voters were apparently too stupid to understand their ballot papers. Seems like a good campaign tactic?

Anyway, this weekend, Basel-Landschaft is chock full of the sorts of lower-middle class suburbs that swung hard against the UDC in Zurich (eg Dübendorf -7%, Rümlang -10%, Unterengstringen -14%). The sorts of places where the UDC built their route to national dominance in the 90s/2000s. So will be interesting to see if the same pattern holds up.
Logged
parochial boy
parochial_boy
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,114


Political Matrix
E: -8.38, S: -6.78

« Reply #21 on: March 31, 2019, 11:29:19 AM »
« Edited: March 31, 2019, 01:19:47 PM by parochial boy »

Another day, another great day for the left.

First, Baselland has become the third canton in the Switzerland where the PS are actually the largest party. It was always a possibility, but not really expected, so in all is a fantastic results

Results for the Regierungsrat
1. Anton Lauber (PDC) - 41,417 votes (elected)
2. Isaac Leber (Greens) - 40,561 votes (elected)
3. Kathrin Schweizer (PS) - 37,187 votes (elected)
4. Monitca Gschwind (PLR) - 33,551 votes (elected)
5. Thomas Weber (UDC) - 32,338 votes (elected)
6. Thomas de Courten (UDC) - 23,617 votes
7. Samuel Mathys (Ind) - 16,913 votes

Meaning the PS win back the seat they lost 4 years ago to leave the executive evenly balanced between left and right

In the Landrat
PS - 22 seats (+1)
UDC - 21 seats (-7)
PLR - 17 seats (nc)
Greens - 14 seats (+6)
PDC - 8 seats (nc)
PEV - 4 seats (nc)
GreenLiberals - 3 seats (nc)
"Die Mitte" (alliance of centrist parties) - 1 seat (+1)
PBD - 0 seats (-1)

Huge swing to the left again, and massive one away from the UDC. As mentioned, to a degree this bears up the swings in Zurich, as BL is demographically very similar to the sorts of places that have been swinging hardest to the left across German Switzerland. But, once again, this is the sort of swing that defies all expectations

In Luzern

For the Government
Guido Graf (PDC) - 59,291 votes (elected)
Reto Wyss (PDC) - 58,088 votes (elected)
Peter Fabian (PLR) - 56,410 votes (elected)
Paul Winker (UDC) - 53,675 votes
Korintha Bärtsch (Greens) - 42,946 votes
Jörg Meyer (PS) - 42,546 votes
Marcel Schwerzmann (Ind) - 39,500 votes
Roland Fischer (GreenLiberals) - 35,365 votes
Rudolf Schweizer (Ind) - 4234 votes

A second round will be required for the final two seats. The two right wing candidates should be favourites in it, but Schwerzmann will need to mobilise the right wing vote to get past the two left wing candidates to. In both cases, Schwerzmann finishing only 7th, and Winker failing to be elected in the first round, we are talking about quite a major couple of surprises.

In the Kantonsrat
PDC - 34 seats (-4)
UDC - 22 seats (-7)
PLR - 22 seats (-3)
PS - 19 seats (+3)
Greens - 15 seats (+8) - includes one member elected on the "Young Greens" list
GreenLiberals - 8 seats (+3)

Another Green wave. To put it in context, the left wing now have 34 seats in the Luzerner Kantonsrat. They haven't won this many since, well, never - This is the most left wing election result in Lucerne's history.

As a final take though, I don't expect that these sorts of trends will hold up at the federal elections. Like with Zurich, both Lucerne and Baselland have special circumstances. Baselland is basically entirely made up of the sort of places whose demographics are leading them to be more and more left wing; and Lucerne is basically a canton in transition from being rural, catholic and conservative to being increasingly urban and economicall and culturally linked to the proserous Mittelland - a sort of Swiss Greman Fribourg if you will.
Logged
parochial boy
parochial_boy
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,114


Political Matrix
E: -8.38, S: -6.78

« Reply #22 on: April 05, 2019, 03:16:35 AM »
« Edited: April 05, 2019, 03:23:00 AM by 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).
Logged
parochial boy
parochial_boy
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,114


Political Matrix
E: -8.38, S: -6.78

« Reply #23 on: April 07, 2019, 01:56:05 PM »

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.
Logged
parochial boy
parochial_boy
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,114


Political Matrix
E: -8.38, S: -6.78

« Reply #24 on: April 08, 2019, 02:22:51 PM »
« Edited: April 08, 2019, 02:39:42 PM by 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.
Logged
Pages: [1] 2 3 4 5 6 ... 11  
Jump to:  


Login with username, password and session length

Terms of Service - DMCA Agent and Policy - Privacy Policy and Cookies

Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2015, Simple Machines

Page created in 0.093 seconds with 12 queries.