Nationalist People's Party sweeps to Swiss power
The nationalist Swiss People’s Party swept to victory with the highest share of the vote in parliamentary elections today following an anti-foreigner campaign, according to projections by state-owned Swiss television. The Greens and Social Democrats also picked up seats.
While no party came close to having enough votes to form a government on its own, the outcome will give the People’s Party a bigger voice in the formation of the Federal Council, the seven-member cabinet that governs Switzerland. That in turn would likely increase the nationalist tone of government policy.
“There’s no longer any doubt,” said People’s Party chief Ueli Maurer. The weakest of the other coalition parties will have to give its second seat in the cabinet to his party, currently the only member with just one seat, Maurer added.
He said his party would put forward its most outspoken member – billionaire industrialist Christoph Blocher – to join fellow party member Defence Minister Samuel Schmid in the body when parliament decides its make up December 7.
If Blocher isn’t elected, then the party will pull out of the coalition, Maurer said.
Coalition partners bristled at the threat.
“The People’s Party now is trying to dictate to the other parties,” said Philipp Staehelin, president of the Christian Democrats.
The People’s Party gained 12 seats in the National Council, the 200-seat lower house of parliament. That brings its total to 57, five more than the 52 of the Social Democrats, the previous leader who gained one seat in the voting.
The other two coalition partners – centrist and right of centre – each lost eight seats.
Christiane Langenberger, president of the Radical Democrats, blamed her party’s losses on fears caused by world economic problems.
“In such times simple slogans are preferred over thoughtful positions,” Langenberger said.
Philipp Staehelin, president of the Christian Democrats, rejected the assertion that the People’s Party should get a second seat. That would weaken a system that has worked for more than 40 years, he said.
The gains by the People’s Party put added strain on the so-called “magic formula” of consensus politics that has shared power in governing the Alpine nation since 1959.
Maurer said the 27.2% of the vote won by the People’s Party was the best showing by a Swiss party in 70 years. The Social Democrats received 23.3%, a gain of 0.8% on its top rank in 1999.
The centrist parties in the coalition suffered losses. The Radical Democrats were in third place with 16.8%, down from 19.9% four years ago. The Christian Democrats were in fourth with 14.3%, down from 15.9%.
The Greens, outside the coalition, picked up five seats for a total of 14, for which Co-president Ruth Genner credited the Greens’ environmental and social positions.
She rejected the People’s Party’s claim to another cabinet seat and said, “It’s time for the party to be removed completely from the cabinet.”
Nearly 4.7 million Swiss voters were eligible to cast ballots today for the two-chamber National Assembly, which also includes the 46-seat Council of States.
Turnout in Swiss elections has been less than 50% since the 1970s. It was 43.3%t four years ago.
The People’s Party on Friday was rebuked by the United Nations refugee agency, which said it had placed “some of the most nakedly anti-asylum advertisements by a major political party that we’ve seen in Europe to date.”
The party’s full-page newspaper advertisements last week said, “Certain ethnic groups dominate the criminal statistics,” noting that the number of rapes in Switzerland had risen 70% and murders 32% in recent years.
It cited figures showing that 80% of individuals charged with drug trafficking are foreigners, mostly Albanians and West Africans.
Ron Redmond, chief spokesman of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said the advertisement used “tricks” typical of the “the anti-asylum lobby,” such as “placing the word ’asylum-seeker’ systematically and repeatedly in close conjunction with words such as ’terrorist,’ ’criminal,’ ’rape,’ ’disease,’ ’fraud,’ ’bogus’ and so on.”
Another advertisement claimed the other three parties were responsible for the demise of treasured Swiss attributes such as independence, direct democracy, security and banking secrecy.
Switzerland hosted many of the refugees from former Yugoslavia during the 1990s, and attempts to curb the number of asylum seekers has been a continuing theme as it has been in some other European countries.
But opinion surveys indicated that many Swiss voters are now more concerned about the sluggish economy, rising health insurance costs and moves to cut Swiss pensions and postpone retirement age for social security.
The People’s Party was still the smallest coalition partner in 1995. In recent years it has opposed Switzerland’s becoming a member of the United Nations and has rejected desires by other coalition parties to join the European Union. In the late 1990s, it accused the Swiss government of caving in to Jewish organisations seeking compensation from Swiss banks for families of Holocaust victims.
