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

[Good Habit]

Trouble is, if the Greens were to replace Cassis wouldn't the Right heavily resist that because it means the SVP-FDP lose their majority?

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Well, as they dont have a majority in parliament, why should they have a majority in government? And on many issues, Svp and FDP dont get along with each other that Well..., so vheavy resistance' would be that effektive. The question is more: will sp and cvp go along with a quick change, or will they balk, as future changes could as well effect them (and thus, delaing change is a Form of self Protektion) and would the glp really support a gp member..?

Could we even see an expansion in the Council?

An Expansion would require a constitutional amendment, including a popular vote.. Has been discussed for many years, but not really intensely, so, likely, is still decades away..

[Good Habit]

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

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

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

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

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

 

[Good Habit]

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

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

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

[Good Habit]

The capital gains and dividends is silly as most countries tax them at lower not higher rate. 

Well, it's not about capital gains, those still remain free of tax for private citizens.. (Although, Switzerland has a moderate wealth tax - and with increasing wealth, you might pay more of that...)

[Good Habit]

Any experts on Swiss politics want to share their thoughts on this referendum?

Well, there is already a thread on that....

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=310834.0

-- and yes - it will almoust certainly pass with >60% yes and <40% no..

[Good Habit]

So what happened with Baume-Schneider surprisingly beating Herzog?

There are various factors... Initially, strong opposition to Baume-Schneider came from the FDP - who considered overrepresentation of "Latin" speakers a threath to their BR Cassis (actually head of the Foreign department..) There was some leftwing opposition to Herzog due to her support for some business Tax-cuts (during her time as state treasurer of Basel-Stadt).

And then, Baume-Schneider sold herself well as a sympathetic  farm girl still holding some sheep - this was popluar with rural MP's and enabled them to forget earlier doubts about her years with a trots outfit during her college years...

OTOH, it would allow for the right wingers to put some pressure on Alain Berset, now the longest serving - but still youngest - member of the government, and actual head of the Health and social Department, and during the pandemic the most popular BR - to evtl. resign (eg after the next general election - October 2023)"to remove the overrepresentation of french speakers."...

And then there was some discussion about the allocation of Departments... With the Finance Department geting vacated by Ueli Maurer, there were expectations that Berset (claiming seniority), the FDP BR Karin Keller-Sutter (then at Justice and Police) and Herzog (with experience in financial matters) would be potential candidates. Rumour has it that Keller-Sutter lobbied within the FDP parliamentary group against Herzog, to prevent a similar character / competitor for the position of Alpha-Woman - from joining goverment.

This are the general takes why EBS finally won...

So, at the distribution of the Departments, Berset had to remain at Health and Social, Keller-Sutter got Finance, and Baume-Schneider Police and Justice. And as Viola Amherd, the actual Defense Secretary from the Mitte, surpisingly offered to stay at Defense, the door was open for Albert Rösti, well known oil lobbyst, to get Environment, Energie and Infrastructure...

So, you could say, the hard right has their agenda fullfilled - Keller-Sutter at Finance seems to be the strongwoman in the actual government, anti green policies and austerity will dominate, and Baume-Schneider (as the hope of the leftists) will now have to keep asylum seekers away....

[Good Habit]

As a pre-run to the national Elections scheduled for October 22, 2023,

Cantonal Elections were held on february 12 in Zürich and Basellandschaft.

Results are quite boring, very little change after lukwarm campaigns…

In Zurich, all 7 incumbent members of the Regierungsrat (Government Council) were easily re-elected, with the following numbers of votes:

Mario Fehr (independent, defected from SP during the last legislature:) 192 711 votes
Natalie Rickli, SVP 181 842
Ernst Stocker, SVP 177 639
Martin Neukom (Greens) 161 864
Jaqueline Fehr (SP) 148 [510
Silvia Steiner (Mitte) 146 242
Carmen Walker-Späh (FDP) 145 444

not elected were:
Priska Seiler Graf (SP – Member of National Council) – who hoped to regain the seat the party had lost trough the defection of Mario Fehr    120 586 votes
Peter Grünenfelder (FDP)  108 395
Benno Scherrer (GLP)   93 603
Anne-Claude Hensch (AL)    70 189
Hans-Peter Amrein (independent – former cantonal legislator for SVP, defected during last legislature)
Daniel Sommer (EVP)
and some more

(for direct results, see: https://www.zh.ch and follow the link "Wahlen"

Polls had given Priska Seiler Graf  some hopes to beat Silvia Steiner, (Head of the Education departement) who had come under critic for  her management of COVID in Schools, and the failure to recruit enough teachers (massive retirement wave of baby-boomers…)

The other candidates did just have to low a profile to beat the front of incumbents…

And turnout was just 35.79 % - actually an increase from 4 years ago….

In the legislative Election – 180 Seats of Cantonal Council changes were also marginal

Seat distribution: SVP 46 (+1), SP 36 (+1), FDP 29 (nc), GLP 24 (+1) Greens 19 (-3), Mitte 11 (+3)
EVP 7 (-1), AL 5 (-1), EDU 3 (-1)  (Aufrecht/FreeList (anti Covid measures group)didn't win any seats, although they won more votes than EDU, but without a strong regional base, they werent able to pass the threshold (5% in at least one district, or 3 % overall)..



In Baselland, all 4 incumbents that did run again easily won re-election
Anton Lauber (Mitte) 41711 votes
Isaac Reber (Greens) 37505
Kathrin Schweizer (SP) 35020
Monica Gschwind (FDP) 35008

For the 5th seat (held by the SVP) there were several new candidates, and surprisingly, Thomy Jourdan (EVP) – with 26217 votes did beat Sandra Sollberger, SVP (known as somewhat a hardliner) – who got 25080 votes.
Thomas Nock (SP) 23764, and Manuel Ballmer (GLP) 20103 followed close behind… - and yes, turnout was 34.7 %…

For the legislative Election – 90 Seats of the «Landrat» (Country Council) – marginal changes as well:
Seats won: SVP 21 (nc), SP 20 (-2), FDP 17 (nc), Greens 12 (-2), Mitte 10 (+1 – compared to the combined results of the pre-decessor partys CVP + BDP), GLP 6 (+3) , EVP 4 (nc)

Detailed results: https://abstimmungen.bl.ch

So, a summary of both elections - very little change, but overall – the Greens seem to be biggest loosers – GLP gets some small wins, and Mitte seems to benefit from the re-branding – away from the «Christian» Label – (which in practice, just meant «Catholic»…)  while the rest seems pretty stable...

[Good Habit]

Has there been any updates on Swiss-EU negotiations? I heard very little about that since the framework talks collapsed.

Nope - some people consider it urgent (but these are the ones who fear the loss of access to markets / participation in research projects) - while for all politicians these is basically a taboo issue - or - the elephant in the room thant can't be mentioned - because whatever you say, this might annoy someone, and in an election year, that means you could loose some votes...

[Good Habit]

What is the potential political effect of the issues with Credit Suisse?

Comming late to the party...

The Crisis (Bailout - not to be called that.../ Merger... - whatever) doesn't look very good for the government, and particularly not for the most pro-banking party (Old - and Neo-Liberal FDP - usually the party of bankers per se...  - including their Federal Counciler Karin Keller-Sutter, since January head of the treasury... ) Her insistence that it's not a bailout, although the government / Central Bank might take liabilities up to 250 Billion CHF, and the clear failure of the existing anti-bailout legislation (large banks need to have targeted breaking points, to save the domestic branch, and let the international sectors go in to bankruptcy - this rule was blatantly violated at the first case in question...)

So credibility of the right wing / neo-liberal groups is quite low at the moment - (they always justify exorbitant boni with the claim - "this is needed to attract the best talent" - when the "best talents seem just bo be talented in greed, and are otherwise quite clueless how to run a succesful business.

There haven't been many new polls since last week, but at the moment it looks as if FDP could go down, (moderately , most likely - real landslide are really rare here), and that SP might gain somewhat (they have been warning from excessive dependency of the banking sector quite often). SVP tries to run it both sides - they are usually completely on the neo-liberal side - unless its about some of their pet projects, like farming subsidies.... Now, they claim that this deal was forced on Switzerland by the US - and UK governments... (Keller-Sutter had been announcing that she was in frequent Exchange with Janet Yellen and Jeremy Hunt, before the bail out...)

So, the SVP now claims that the deal violates Switzerlands sovereignity - and that at least the domestic activities of (former) CS should be seperated in a spin-off (to allow continued competition) - while the SP - and also Mitte (former CVP) now ask for a strengthening of Postfinance - still the leading -state owned- payment service, by granting them a full banking license... (Earlier, (a year or to back) Pariament has declined such a proposal, to avoid competition for private banks - FDP and SVP - and some more set a majority privatisation as conditio sine qua non (banking should always be  a private company) while the SP and Greens were opposed to privatisation - so there was no deal - then...

Parliament will hold an emergency session starting April 12, to discuss the matter - because most parties (including FDP) announce the opposition to the existing deal (UBS takes over CS without restricitions, shareholders have no say in it, and T1 bonds are whipped out) - it might theoretically be possible that the deal could still fail, although it was formally legalized with an emergency decree...

What would happen in such a case is difficult to predict, the government - especially KKS - are insisting that "There is no Alternative" (the  option that was discussed was full nationalization of CS - but this was rejected as "to risky" - or running to much against the neo-liberal dogma...