Switzerland. The fighters against the “black sheep” won the parliamentary elections.

The refugee crisis continues to affect election results in European countries.

Subscribe to the news "PolitNavigator - Kyiv" in Facebook, Classmates or In contact with

Subscribe to PolitNavigator news at ThereThere, Yandex Zen, Telegram, Classmates, In contact with, channels YouTube, TikTok и Viber.
To subscribe to notifications in your browser, click here.

A week ago, in the municipal elections in Vienna, right-wing opponents of migration and the European bureaucracy managed to seriously push back the Social Democrats in the Austrian capital Vienna, and in Cologne this weekend, the leader of the mayoral race, a local official dealing with refugees, narrowly escaped death after meeting with a far-right radical. Simultaneously with the election of the mayor of Cologne, a vote was held in Switzerland on the composition of the future parliament. But unlike this German city, where a record low turnout was recorded, in Switzerland it, on the contrary, became the highest in the last 40 years.

A confident first place was taken by the Swiss People's Party, which received 29% of the vote, giving it 65 seats in parliament, 11 seats more than in the previous elections in 2011. In second place with 19% of the votes are the Social Democrats, who lost 3 seats and will form a faction of 43 deputies. The third place was taken by the liberal radicals, who received 16% of the votes and, on the contrary, received three more seats, for a total of 33 seats. The main loser of these elections was the Green-Liberal Party, which became the discovery of the 2011 elections, but during this time managed to disappoint its voters. Having received only 4,6% and having lost as many as 5 mandates, this time they managed to get only 7 of their representatives into parliament.

To put it as simply as possible, the Swiss People's Party advocates a tough rebuff to migrants, including migrants from EU countries, they are supporters of maintaining traditional isolation and distance from the European Union, as well as opponents of the growth in the number and influence of their own bureaucracy. Social Democrats have traditionally focused on a greater role for government regulation and support for needy categories of the population, including migrants, as well as rapprochement with the EU. Finally, the liberal-radical party, one of the oldest political organizations on the European continent, can be defined as center-right. On the one hand, they look positively at close cooperation with the EU, but on the other hand, they are also dissatisfied with the growing influence of their own bureaucracy and the volume of social obligations of the state.

The Swiss People's Party has been heading towards this success for a long time. They were the initiators of two successful referendums that were sensational in their time: on a ban on the construction of minarets (2009) and on tightening immigration legislation, in which the deportation of migrants occupied a special place (2014). The party has always been distinguished by the high quality of political creativity and propaganda materials; its campaigns are vivid and well remembered. The party owes much of this to the support of big capital. Its ranks include, for example, Christoph Blocher (a billionaire associated with the chemical industry) and Walter Frei (a major car dealer). The party's propaganda posters released for both referendums became notorious.

Poster 2009

Poster 2014.

However, the features of the Swiss political system are too specific and difficult to understand for the uninitiated. Simple extrapolation of election results to the future composition of the executive branch does not work here. Here it is customary to focus on the broadest possible coalition, and right-wing populists, unyielding in their basic positions, are not the most successful core for forming one. Radical liberals, who this time showed their best results since the 1970s, are much better suited for this role. Their voter does not want to lose traditional Swiss values ​​and advantages, but believes that complete isolation from world processes is impossible today, and most importantly, would be disastrous for the Swiss economy. So it cannot be ruled out that the parliamentary coalition will be formed without the “populists”, although, of course, Swiss politicians will try to avoid such an extreme development of events and find a traditional consensus.