Swiss Elections & Politics (Next election 2019)

[Franknburger]

"We  keep all agreements as they are, just alter the migration part" is of course unrealistic, and most leading Swiss politicians probably know that. However, there will anyway not happen much before the EP election and formation of the new Commission, so having a concept by June is early enough. It is probably also a good idea to look at EP election results first and then decide on the negotiation strategy, and what may be offered to the EU in compensation to free migration.

[ZuWo]

This Jenny, SVP councillor of state from Glarus, resigned his seat for health reasons. Jenny, who had been a member of the Council of State for 16 years, was diagnosed with malignant stomach cancer last week. Jenny had the reputation of being a maverick since he often bucked the official party line and never hesitated to criticize the SVP establishment.

Jenny's unexpected resignation triggers the second by-election to the Council of State in Glarus in less than 6 months; FDP councillor of state Pankraz Freitag died from a heart attack at the end of last year, which resulted in a competitive election between Thomas Hefti (FDP) and Martin Landolt (BDP). Hefti won so the FDP retained the seat. The by-election for Jenny's seat is scheduled for May 18. The SVP will certainly field a candidate and the left is likely to run a candidate, too. It is possible that the CVP and/or the BDP will contest the election as well.

The current balance of power in the Swiss Council of State looks as follows:



CVP: 13 seats
FDP: 11 seats
SP: 11 seats
SVP: 5 seats + 1 independent who is a member of the SVP caucus
GP: 2 seats
GLP: 2 seats
BDP: 1 seat

[ZuWo]

Barely seven days after the vote on the SVP-initiative against mass immigration the new constitutional article has the first tangible effects. Minister of justice Simonetta Sommaruga (SP) called the Croatian foreign Minister earlier today and informed her that the Swiss government cannot sign the current version of a treaty which sought to include Croatia into the current free movement of persons agreement between Switzerland and the European Union.
Indeed, Article 121, clause 4 clearly states that no international accords may be made which violate the text of the new constitutional passage so Sommaruga simply didn't have any other choice.

http://www.nzz.ch/aktuell/startseite/keine-unterzeichnung-in-jetziger-form-1.18244254

[MaxQue]

Barely seven days after the vote on the SVP-initiative against mass immigration the new constitutional article has the first tangible effects. Minister of justice Simonetta Sommaruga (SP) called the Croatian foreign Minister earlier today and informed her that the Swiss government cannot sign the current version of a treaty which sought to include Croatia into the current free movement of persons agreement between Switzerland and the European Union.
Indeed, Article 121, clause 4 clearly states that no international accords may be made which violate the text of the new constitutional passage so Sommaruga simply didn't have any other choice.

http://www.nzz.ch/aktuell/startseite/keine-unterzeichnung-in-jetziger-form-1.18244254

Following that call to Croatian government, EU expelled Switzerland from Horizon 2020 and Erasmus programs.

EU is apparently taking the hardline and it's clear than Switzerland will have to choose between their bilateral aggrements or renounce to teir new immigration policy.

[ZuWo]

Barely seven days after the vote on the SVP-initiative against mass immigration the new constitutional article has the first tangible effects. Minister of justice Simonetta Sommaruga (SP) called the Croatian foreign Minister earlier today and informed her that the Swiss government cannot sign the current version of a treaty which sought to include Croatia into the current free movement of persons agreement between Switzerland and the European Union.
Indeed, Article 121, clause 4 clearly states that no international accords may be made which violate the text of the new constitutional passage so Sommaruga simply didn't have any other choice.

http://www.nzz.ch/aktuell/startseite/keine-unterzeichnung-in-jetziger-form-1.18244254

Following that call to Croatian government, EU expelled Switzerland from Horizon 2020 and Erasmus programs.

EU is apparently taking the hardline and it's clear than Switzerland will have to choose between their bilateral aggrements or renounce to teir new immigration policy.

While the European Union has indeed suspended the ongoing negotations with Switzerland regarding the "Horizon 2020" and "Erasmus" programs all is not said and done yet. As always, negotiations which have been suspended can be resumed at a later point in time.

That Switzerland renounces its new immigration policy is out of the question at the moment. A quota-based system is now part of the constitution and can only be struck down or replaced with a constitutional amendment which may be introduced by a sufficient number of citizens or the parliament. It is clear that such a process would tak a lot of time.

The example of Liechtenstein, which has both a quota-based system to restrict the number of immigrants and a free movement of persons agreement with Europe, shows that there is a precedent for a separate treatment of a non-EU member when it comes to the issue of immigration. Switzerland may try to get a similar kind of deal even if it will be difficult.

[MaxQue]

I'm fully aware than the quota-system can only be repelled by the people. But I personally think than if, at the end of the process, Switzerland has to choose between some bilateral agreements or the immigration system, I suppose than the question will be directly asked to the people.

[Tender Branson]

I'm fully aware than the quota-system can only be repelled by the people. But I personally think than if, at the end of the process, Switzerland has to choose between some bilateral agreements or the immigration system, I suppose than the question will be directly asked to the people.

Why do you write "than" instead of "that" ?

[MaxQue]

I'm fully aware than the quota-system can only be repelled by the people. But I personally think than if, at the end of the process, Switzerland has to choose between some bilateral agreements or the immigration system, I suppose than the question will be directly asked to the people.

Why do you write "than" instead of "that" ?

Given than my first language is French and the low quality of English teaching in Quebec (meaning I learned my English in video games and here), my sentence patterns are based on French grammar. I use "than" for the French "que" and that" for the French "cela". The Wiktionnary is saying than in German, "que" is "dass" and "cela" is "das".

I'm aware it's wrong, but it's deeply ingrained (than is only for comparison, I know).

[ZuWo]

I'm fully aware than the quota-system can only be repelled by the people. But I personally think than if, at the end of the process, Switzerland has to choose between some bilateral agreements or the immigration system, I suppose than the question will be directly asked to the people.

If all else fails this is a possible scenario, yes.

[Zanas]

I'm fully aware than the quota-system can only be repelled by the people. But I personally think than if, at the end of the process, Switzerland has to choose between some bilateral agreements or the immigration system, I suppose than the question will be directly asked to the people.

Why do you write "than" instead of "that" ?

Given than my first language is French and the low quality of English teaching in Quebec (meaning I learned my English in video games and here), my sentence patterns are based on French grammar. I use "than" for the French "que" and that" for the French "cela". The Wiktionnary is saying than in German, "que" is "dass" and "cela" is "das".

I'm aware it's wrong, but it's deeply ingrained (than is only for comparison, I know).

You also tend to mix "though" and "through", by the way, but I'm sure you're also aware of that.

[Associate Justice PiT]

I'm fully aware than the quota-system can only be repelled by the people. But I personally think than if, at the end of the process, Switzerland has to choose between some bilateral agreements or the immigration system, I suppose than the question will be directly asked to the people.

Why do you write "than" instead of "that" ?

Given than my first language is French and the low quality of English teaching in Quebec (meaning I learned my English in video games and here), my sentence patterns are based on French grammar. I use "than" for the French "que" and that" for the French "cela". The Wiktionnary is saying than in German, "que" is "dass" and "cela" is "das".

I'm aware it's wrong, but it's deeply ingrained (than is only for comparison, I know).

     In my experience, "que" can be either "that" or "than", and "cela" would be translated as "this". I understand that linguistic habits can be tough to break, though.

[ZuWo]

President of the Federal Council/foreign minister Didier Burkhalter travelled to Berlin yesterday to meet Chancellor Angela Merkel and foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. Later on in the day he flew to Paris to talk to Laurent Fabius, foreign minister of France.

While Paris gave Burkhalter the expected cold reception Merkel's conciliatory words at the official press conference were rather remarkable. Indeed, Merkel stressed the importance of an intense and healthy relationship between Switzerland and the European Union. More importantly, she made clear that there was quite a lot of time for both parties to find a common solution and warned against imposing hasty sanctions on Switzerland. All in all Merkel's reaction differs considerably from the more antagonistic stance of the European Commission, which has made most political analysts in Switzerland cautiously optimistic about to the pending negotiations between the Swiss government and the European Union.

[Zanas]

Asinus asinum fricat.

[ZuWo]

Obwalden, one of the three founding cantons of the Swiss Confederation and also one of the smallest, elects a new parliament and cantonal government today. Obwalden, along with a few other cantons in central Switzerland, is one of the remaining Christian Democratic strongholds. The current composition of the parliament looks as follows:



The cantonal government has five seats and is under firm CVP/FDP control (two CVP, one CSP and two FDP seats). Four of the five incumbents are running for re-election while the SVP is trying to finally win a seat as well.

Hans Wallimann (CVP) - incumbent
Niklaus Bleiker (CVP) - incumbent
Franz Enderli (CSP) - incumbent
Paul Federer (FDP) - incumbent
Büchi-Kaiser Maya (FDP)
Sigrist Albert (SVP)

http://ilz.ow.ch/gesetzessammlung/GEW2014/Regierungsratswahl.htm

[MaxQue]

It's apparently already completed. No change in the government, incumbents reelected, FDP defending its open seat. Absolute majority is 5866 votes, so no second turn. The SVP candidate managed to finish 5th (a winning position) in only 2 of the 7 Gemeinden (town, municipality) Kerns and Giswil (his hometown).


Hans Wallimann (CVP) 9406 votes
Franz Enderli (CSP) 9070 votes
Niklaus Bleiker (CVP) 8420 votes
Paul Federer (FDP) 7737 votes
Büchi-Kaiser Maya (FDP) 6093 votes
Sigrist Albert (SVP) 5261 votes

For the Cantonal Council/Kantonsrat:

Christian Democratic People's Party (CVP): 19 seats (-1)
Swiss People's Party (SVP): 13 seats (+2)
Free Democratic Party (FDP): 10 seats (0)
Christian-Social Party (CSP): 7 seats (-1)
Social Democratic Party (SP): 6 seats (0)

CVP won 6 of the 7 Gemeinden, but finished 3th in Alpnach (CSP first, SVP 2nd).

[ZuWo]

^^
Perfect summary.

In short, this election is just one more example of the slow but steady decline of the once dominant Catholic parties in central Switzerland (and the canton of Valais). Both the CVP and CSP are still very strong in these rural and conservative cantons but they are gradually losing voters to the SVP. It is a bit surprising that the SVP still hasn't managed to gain a foothold in Obwalden's executive branch but I guess it is merely a question of time until that happens.
Given the demographics of the canton any election is an uphill climb for a left-wing party (the Green Party Obwalden actually dissolved in 2009) but it baffles me that the SP didn't even contest the election for the cantonal government. The left in Obwalden apparently seems to be content with remaining a negligible force.

[ZuWo]

The canton of Nidwalden has elected its members of parliament as well as the cantonal government today. A new method to allocate the seats in the parliamentary election ("Doppelter Pukelsheim") which benefits the smaller parties, i.e. the Greens and the Social Democrats in this case, has been used this time. The final results in the legislative election are as follows:

SVP: 17 seats (-2)
CVP: 17 seats (-1)
FDP: 15 seats (-2)
GPS: 8 seats (+3)
SPS: 3 seats (+2)

In the election for cantonal government, which consists of seven members, the two SVP incumbents have been re-elected with the highest number of votes. Two FDP incumbents have won re-election as well. However, the Free Democrats have held three seats so far and their third candidate has not received enough votes to be elected on the first ballot. Of the three CVP candidates running to retain the two Christian Democratic seats, one of them an incumbent and the other two new candidates, only one has managed to attract a sufficient level of popular support. The two candidates that are further behind are the third SVP candidate and the only left-winger in the race, a Green Party member:

Ueli Amstad (SVP - incumbent): 9,280 votes ELECTED
Res Schmid (SVP - incumbent): 8,428 ELECTED
Yvonne von Deschwanden (FDP - incumbent): 8,169 ELECTED
Hans Wicki (FDP - incumbent): 8,075 ELECTED
Karin Kayer (CVP): 7,858 ELECTED
------------------------------------------------------------
Alfred Bossard (FDP): 7,347
Othmar Filliger (CVP): 7,293
Alois Bissig (CVP - incumbent): 7,102
Martin Zimmermann (SVP): 5,329
Conrad Wagner (GPS): 5,203 

Full results:

http://www.wahlen.nw.ch/

[ZuWo]

This Sunday is going to be election day in the canton of Bern. Bern is a bilingual canton which is very rural on the one hand but has a few comparatively sizable cities such as Bern, Biel and Thun. Traditionally, Bern has always been a conservative canton. However, since the various center-right parties (e.g. CVP, FDP, BDP) and the SVP didn't cooperate in past elections the left (SP and Greens) actually holds four of the seven seats in the cantonal government. At the same time, the cantonal parliament is under firm center-right control so Bern is a canton which is notoriously difficult to govern.

This weekend's election is probably going to be different for a variety of reasons, though. For the first time in many years the three parties SVP, BDP and FDP have been able to make a deal and form a coalition for the election for cantonal government. Two SVP, one BDP and one FDP candidate are running together against the four left-wing incumbents, which makes this race quite unpredictable (what matters more - the conservative leanings of the canton or the power of incumbency?). In addition, the Bernese constitution is a decisive factor in the election as well: According to the constitution, at least one of the seven seats in the cantonal government must be held by a person from the French-speaking part of Bern ("Jura Bernois"). Indeed, both the SVP and the SP are running a candidate from that region so it will be interesting to see which of the two gets more votes.

[ZuWo]

The results of the first three rural precincts (Corgémont, Sonceboz-Sombeval and Arch) for the parliamentary election have been reported and they seem to point to gains for the SVP.

Results can be accessed here:

http://www.growa.apps.be.ch/growa/action/GemeindenUebersichtAction.do?method=read&sprache=d

[ZuWo]

With the results of more municipalities in the pro-SVP trend appears to solidify. The SVP gains are mostly at the expense of the BDP. Former SVP voters who switched to the BDP are coming home, it seems.

[ZuWo]

All the votes have been tallied and the results of the elections in Bern are as follows:

Election for parliament (Grosser Rat)

SVP: 49 seats (+5)
SP: 36 (-2)
FDP: 17 (0)
GP: 15 (0)
BDP: 14 (-11)
EVP: 12 (+2)
GLP: 11 (+7)
EDU: 5 (0)
PSA: 3 (0)
GPB-DA: 1 (+1)

Both the Swiss People's Party and the Green Liberals are the winners of the election. The BDP suffers a landslide defeat while there aren't any major changes on the left of the political spectrum. The balance of power remains essentially unchanged since the center-right parties still have a comfortable majority.

Let's focus on the election for cantonal government (Regierungsrat), which has produced a somewhat weird result:

1. Béatrice Simon (BDP - incumbent): 128,862 votes
2. Christoph Neuhaus (SVP - incumbent): 119,509
3. Bernhard Pulver (GP - incumbent):  118,732
4. Hans-Jürg Käser (FDP - incumbent): 109,600
5. Andreas Rickenbach (SP - incumbent): 108,822
6. Barbara Egger-Jenzer (SP - incumbent): 105,006
7. Philippe Perrenoud (SP - incumbent, candidate from Jura Bernois): 86,469
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8. Manfred Bühler (SVP - candidate from Jura Bernois): 94,957

As you can see, Philippe Perrenoud was re-elected despite receiving fewer votes than Manfred Bühler. Both candidates are from Jura Bernois, the French-speaking part of Bern which has a constitutionally mandated right to one of seven seats in the cantonal government. How is such an outcome possible? We need to have a separate look at the Perrenoud's and Bühler's vote share in Jura Bernois to get an answer to this question:

1. Philippe Perrenoud: 5,889 votes
...
4. Manfred Bühler: 4,919 votes

The Bernese constitution states that the winner of the "Jura Bernois" seat shall be determined according to a specific mathematic formula, the details of which I am not entirely familiar with. In short, the candidates' vote shares in both the Jura Bernois region and the entire canton are weighed separately. Apparently Perrenoud's lead of 980 votes in this particular region were just enough to offset Bühler's lead of nearly 8,500 votes at the cantonal level.

This voting system was established more than 20 years ago in order to ensure that the citizens of Jura Bernois get the representation they want. It will undoubtedly come under scrutiny in the next legislative period.

http://www.maja.apps.be.ch/maja/internetAction/MajaInternetAction.do?method=read&typ=4&sprache=d

[ZuWo]

The polling institute gfs.bern has released its first opinion poll regarding the federal ballot on May 18. Swiss citizens are going to have their say on three constitutional amendments (an amendment to establish a federal minimum wage of CHF 4000, a proposal to ban convicted paedophiles from working with children, and an proposal to boost the role of family doctors in the Swiss health System) and one bill (the planned purchase of 22 Swedish Gripen fighter jets for 3.1 billion):



http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/swiss_news/Minimum_wage_fails_to_seduce_Swiss.html?cid=38353726

[ZuWo]

One of the news stories that has dominated the political discourse in Switzerland over the course of the last few days are reports of a "private journey" of a few federal SVP politicians to the Islamic Republic of Iran. In fact, the SVP Delegation met Iranian officials for informal talks and criticized the existing sanctions on Iran, which are also supported by Switzerland.



The SVP is known for being Israel-friendly and critical of Islam so this visit might appear odd at first glance. However, the party has repeatedly attacked the alleged "superpower politics" of the USA and the European Union and demanded that the Swiss government must stop yielding to foreign pressure and should return to a more strict definition of neutrality. Indeed, the SVP's stance on foreign policy in general also became obvious some time ago when a leading SVP MP scolded the Swiss media and the foreign minister for being blindly "anti-Russian" regarding the ongoing crisis in the Ukraine.

[ZuWo]

New poll on the question whether or not the Swiss Air Force should be equipped with 22 Saab JAS 39 Gripen fighter jets for a total cost of 3.1 billion Swiss Francs:



So while the no-campaign still has the lead, there appears to be a noticeable trend in favor of the Gripen jets. It's probably going to be very close on May 18.

http://www.blick.ch/news/politik/jetzt-steht-ueli-maurer-selbst-im-regen-id2830735.html

The major centrist and right-wing parties (SVP, FDP, CVP and BDP) support the proposal and those on the left (SP, GP, GLP) oppose it. Both the right and the left agree that the Swiss Air Force is going to have to phase out its 42 Northrop F-5E Tiger II in a few years. However, whereas the right-leaning parties say that they need to be replaced and that the Gripen jets are suitable for this purpose, the left either claims that less money should be spent or that there is no need for new fighter jets at all.

Northrop F-5E Tiger II



Saab JAS 39 Gripen

[Tender Branson]

It would be great if we would sell our own decades-old fighter jets and also the recently-bought-at-a-way-too-high-cost (and totally useless) Eurofighter jets, to pay down the HYPO bank debt.

In return, we could ask Switzerland that the Austrian and Swiss airspace is merged and Switzerland defends our airspace as well (you have enough fighter jets for that anyway).

What do you think, ZuWo ?