Swiss Elections & Politics (Next election 2019)

[parochial boy]

Final results from Bern:

The Regierungsrat stays exactly the same (2 UDC, 2 PS, 1 PBD, 1 Green, 1 PLR), and it wasn't even close. The PBD comfortably held their seat. As did Pierre Alain-Schnegg, the UDC Conseiller d'Etat for the Jura Bernois, thanks, once again, the the left's delightful tradition of having both a Separatist and a pro-Bernois candidate stand separately (also, UDC allying with the PLR helped).

Results for the Grand Conseil:

UDC - 46 (-3)
PS - 38 (+5)
PLR - 20 (+3)
Greens - 14 (-1, on exactly the same share of the vote as 2014)
PBD - 13 (-1)
Green Liberals - 11 (nc)
Parti Evangélique - 10 (-2)
UDF - 5 (nc)
PSA - 2 (-1)
Alternative Liste (far left) - 1

UDC losing seats again, which is becoming a clear pattern. Losing every referendum in the last two years, and now losing seats as well. Not looking very pretty out there on the far right is it mr Rösti? 

Also a pretty solid night for the left, despite not winning the executive majority, they managed to get over 34% (+4% on 2014) of the vote, their best combined result since 2006; including the AL winning a seat in the city of Bern itself (which gave 59% of its votes to the left, 7% up on the federal election), even despite the traditional far-left sectarianism which meant the Labour party had a separate list.

Also, special shout out to the minuscule Jura-Bernois (but German speaking) commune of La Scheulte for it's impressive 7% turnout, which is persumably some sort of record. The handful of people who did turn out gave 76% of their votes to the left though, which probably makes it about the most left wing commune in the history of the country.

[palandio]

PS 38
PBD 13

[parochial boy]

PS 38
PBD 13

Woops, corrected. You would have thought copying a table would be easy wouldn't you?

Link to official results

[parochial boy]

RTS/Sotomo have done a poll for the Geneva Conseil d'Etat, top 10 and a few other interesting ones are as follows (anyone over 50% is elected in the first round; any remaining of the the 7 unfilled spots will elected at the second round):

1. Pierre Maudet (PLR) - 41.9%
2. Mauro Poggia (MCG) - 38%
3. Serge Dal Busco (PDC) - 32.6%
4. Antonio Hodgers (Greens) - 32.5%
5. Anne Emery-Torracinta (PS) - 26%
6. Thierry Apothéloz (PS) - 25.3%
7. Nathalie Fontanet (PLR) - 25%
--------------------------------------
8. Luc Barthassat (PDC) - 23.8%
9. Sandrine Salerno (PS) - 22%
10. Jocelyne Haller (Ensemble à Gauche) - 21.9%

12. Yves Nidegger (top UDC) - 19.9%
16. Ana Roch (MCG president) - 13.1%
21. Eric Stauffer (GEM) - 9.6% HAHAHA!!

If recreated on the day, that would mean the PS picking up one seat at the expense of the PDC (incumbent Luc Barthassat).

Pierre Maudet is unsurprisingly top, as he is the highest profile councillor.
Mauro Poggia is a bit of a surprise given the GEM split, but it figures as he is generally considered to be well liked and effective.
Anne Emery-Torracinta might not still be up there, considering recent events.

[parochial boy]

So the Geneva cantonal election is on Sunday, and, notwithstanding a few controversies, the final days haven't been as amusing as the earlier stages of the campaign.

Key recent stories include a GEM candidate being arrested for allegedly trying to buy votes, and then being released as the charges were pretty much baseless. There had been a risk earlier on that the election might be cancelled, owing to a controversy about the voting materials, which I wrote about on OWW, but which isn't really interesting enough to reproduce here - but that seems to have largely gone away as an issue, so the vote is going ahead as planned.

Anyway, following national, or even Romand trends, the left and the PLR should do reasonably well, and everyone else should do badly. However, owing to Geneva's own eccentricities, and the 7% threshold, that won't necesarily be the case.

I expect the PLR and the Greens will make gains at least - whereas almost everyone else is sitting on a potential disaster.

[parochial boy]

So, Geneva has voted, and the key story today is that it has been an absolute disaster for the nationalist right. To a degree this was expected, what with the MCG split and all, but the extent to which they underperformed today, well, can't be explained away by that alone.

Anyway, results:

Conseil d'Etat
1. Pierre Maudet (PLR) - 50.4% (Elected)
2. Mauro Poggia (MCG) - 43.9%
3. Serge Dal Busco (PDC) - 41.0%
4. Antonio Hodgers (Greens) - 40.9%
5. Anne Emery Torracinta (PS) - 33.5%
6. Thierry Apothéloz (PS) - 33.1%
7. Nathalie Fontanet (PLR) - 31.7%
---
8.  Sandrine Salerno (PS) - 30.2%
9. Luc Barthassat (PDC -incumbent) - 27.3%
10. Alexandre de Senarclens (PLR) - 22.9%
other notables -
11. Marjorie de Chastonay (Greens) - 20.5%
13. Yves Niedegger (top UDC) - 19.7%
14. Jocelyne Haller (EàG) - 17.9%
15. Eric Stauffer (GEM) - 13.5%

Quick take being that incumbent Luc Barthassat looks in real trouble for the second round. The Socialists, meanwhile, have to take a gamble on whether to keep a third candidate in the running (Salerno has already said she is stepping down), in the hope of snatching a third seat; or to pull her out in hopes of making sure they at least have two representatives on the council. They had initially agreed with the Greens and EàG that no party would stand more than two candidates in the second round, but Salerno being so far ahead of De Chastonay and Haller changes the arithmetic somewhat.

Grand Conseil
PLR - 25.2% (+2.8%) - 28 seats (+4)
PS - 15.3% (+1.0%) - 17 seats (+2)
Greens - 13.2% (+4.0%) - 15 seats (+5)
PDC - 10.7% (+0.1%) - 12 seats (+1)
MCG - 9.4% (-9.8%) - 11 seats (-9)
Ensemble à Gauche - 7.8% (-0.9%) - 9 seats (nc)
UDC - 7.3% (-3.0%) - 8 seats (-3)

outside of parliament:
Genève en Marche - 4.1% (+4.1%)
La Liste Femmes (feminists) - 3.3% (+3.3%)
Green Liberals - 1.5% (-1.4%)
Equality and Fairness - 0.9% (+0.9%)
Liste Pour Genève - 0.7% (+0.7%)
PBD - 0.5% (-0.1%)
updated for final results

In total, the Centre-right gets 40 seats (+5), the left gets 41 (+7) and the nationalist right get 19 (-12). Meaning the left are the biggest of the three blocs, and have their best combined score since 2001.

A few takes -

As mentioned, total disaster for the Right-Wing Populist parties, the MCG vote split off towards GEM, but at the end of the day, GEM didn't even really come close to passing the threshold, which is quite a major bloody nose for Stauffer (in theory, having not made it, GEM will now dissolve).

Poggia will be re-elected comfortably, but he is, er, not really that aligned to his own party any more.

But add to that, it was a really bad result for the UDC, who would have expected to profit from the divisions within the MCG. So seeing them only just scrape past the threshold is actually genuinely shocking. The UDC have been trying to explain away all of their disspointing results recently as being special circumstances, but I think we are really beyond that point now.

The centre-right and left both did well, and remain evenly split. For the PLR, the good result is very much in line with the trend across Romandie, added to the personal credibility of Maudet, means the traditional dominant party of the canton is regaining its place.

On the left, it was clearly an excellent result for the Greens, once again in line with the pattern across Romandie. A good result for the PS too, despite the scandals in the final weeks of the campaign. Finally, Ensemble à Gauche did very well to defy all expectations and stay in the parliament despite the LPG splitters (and the other two small left wing lists who will have taken a good number of left voters) - once again the far left was written off as dead, and once again they have managed to survive.

[parochial boy]

Some maps by commune here.

Patterns are very much what you'd expect, although the largest party by commune isn't very interesting - principally because the PLR were so far ahead that they won almost everywhere.

[FrancoAgo]

3 people on 15 with italian like surname, and italian is not on the wiki list of langue spoken in the canton de genève, is so common italian ancestry in geneve?

[parochial boy]

Yup, lots's of people of Italian descent - Italians were the largest source of immigrants to Switzerland throughout most of the 20th century, and, Geneva is the canton with highest concentration of immigrants - so it stands to reason that a pretty substantial proportion of the canton has Italian (note, not Swiss-Italian) background.

Much of the South and East of the modern canton of Geneva was also part of the Kingdom of Sardinia up until Geneva joined the confederation in1815. That doesn't have any impact on the language people speak, but it does actually have a surprising impact on modern politics; as the PDC strongholds in the South of the canton are all ex-Sardinian, rural and historically catholic communes which were vehemently opposed to the liberal and then radical urban establishment.

[parochial boy]

Interesting article (in French) about the UDC's recent stuggles at the ballot box and how they are losing votes, not just in the cities, but also in their traditional heartland of sub/exurban Switzerland (in particular seen in their recent losses in Aargau, which is basically the byword for exurban commuter land) and that is the left who are gaining the most at their expense.

The idea is that a combination in the declining salience of their traditional "themes" (ie the Euro crisis being over and Switzerland largely escaping the refugee crisis), and an increase in importance of themes around urban infrastructure and services (and healthcare costs, the elephant in the room that the article doesn't mention) which tend to benefit the PS (epecially in German Switzerland) and the Greens (in Romandy).

Anyway, it's interesting that the media are starting to notice the UDC being in trouble, and, you know, nice that there is at least one country where the nationalist right are going backwards.

[parochial boy]

On the 10th of June, it will be time for two more national referendums - the "Law on Gaming" and "Monnaie Pleine" initiative.

The Law on Gaming is a referendum on the law passed last year that will block access to non-Swiss online betting sites (the theory being that they don't pay taxes, although in practice it was the result of rather intense lobbying by the Swiss gambling industry). The law is opposed by a rather heterogenous group consisting of Greens, Green Liberals, PLR and UDCs.

Monnaie Pleine is a popular initiative to introduce "Full Reserve banking" or, to "nationalise the creation of money", which means that the Swiss Central Bank would have full responsibility for the creation of money, in the interest of reducing speculation by the private banks. In practice, this would mean a requirement for banks to hold enough cash to cover 100% of depositors funds. This would mean that banks are no longer able to lend the money funded by depositors (think Glass-Steagall but far more extreme).

This is an insanely complex question to be having a referendum on, and will probably result in an unusually low participation level. But it is also one of the most radical propositions to have ever been asked, in terms of the impact it would have on the Swiss Financial sector. Unsuprisingly, it is opposed by the entire establishment and poltical spectrum, with the exception of the far left.

Anyway, the first poll came out yesterday.

Tabs (in German)

Law on Gaming:
Yes - 42%
No - 53%

Full reserve banking:
Yes - 42%
No - 53% (seriously).

In both cases, there is much higher support in French than in German Switzerland.

Expect the gap for the first to narrow and the second to widen (significantly) as the campaign progresses.

[parochial boy]

Results from the second round in Geneva (top 6 to be elected):

1. Mauro Poggia (MCG) - 56.8%
2. Serge Dal Busco (PDC) - 55.7%
3. Antonio Hodgers (Greens) - 54.3%
4. Nathalie Fontanet (PLR) - 50.6%
5. Anne Emery Torracinta (PS) - 49.1%
6. Thierry Apothéloz (PS) - 48.9%
----
7. Luc Barthassat (PDC) - 38.0%
8. Jocelyne Haller (EàG) - 29.3%
9. Yves Niedegger (UDC) - 26.7%
10. Willy Cretigny (Independent) - 22.4%
11. Paul Aymon (Independent) - 10.4%

Meaning the PS gains a seat from the PDC (and we have that rarest of things, an incumbent failing to be re-elected), and the balance of power is now finely poised, with both left and right having 3 seats each, and Poggia holding the balance of power.

In other Geneva news, we also have the amusing spectacle of 3 SolidaritéS municipal councillors going on strike... agains their own party. As ever, the Geneva far left managing to come across like some sort of parody of far left politics as a whole.

10 June referendums
GFS.Bern have have release a poll, which looks a good deal more reasonable than Tamedia's.

Headlines are
Law on Gaming
Yes - 52%
No - 39%

Monnaie Pleine
Yes - 35%
No - 49%

In both cases, there is a fairly pronounced language divide, with support for both votes much higher in French Switzerland, as well as an age divide (under 30s being much more likely to oppose the law on gaming, but to support monnaie pleine). The tabs also suggest that support for monnaie pleine is higher in rural areas, which would be a rare case of support for the "left wing "option being higher outside of the cities.

[parochial boy]

New Tamedia poll on the 10th June votes from last week:

Games initiative:
Yes - 47%
No - 47%

Monnaie Pleine
Yes - 39%
No -54%

Still a large linguistic divide, but no obvious partisan divide on both topics. Would be hillarious if Monnaie Pleine ends up doing better than No Billag did though.

Graubunden Cantonal Election 10th June
Elections in the trilingual (German, Italian and the mythical Romanche) take place on the same day, and is anther chance to see if the PS's good run and UDC's bad run holds up. Current government breakdown is as follows

Regierungsrate
PBD - 2
PLR - 1
PS - 1
PDC - 1

Grosser rat
PLR - 35
PDC - 31
PBD - 27
PS - 15
UDC - 9
Green Liberals - 2
Independent - 1

This is, of course, another major test for the PBD in one of their strongholds (Widmer-Schlumpf's home canton), but is already looking pretty bad for the PBD. As a result of a corruption scandal involving alleged kickbacks to construction companies (a major local industry) in the Surselva region, the PBD Regierungsrat candidate Andreas Felix has been forced to stand down. As such, they are only one standing one candidate, meaning a guaranteed loss of one executive seat. They will probably hurt in the Grosser Rat race as a result as well, representing yet a further attrition of their base. I would reckon they struggle to make it far beyond 2019 at this rate.

Beyond that, the Grisons is a large, sparsely populated canton. It is conservative, although it's innate conservatism is tempered somewhat by the reliance on international tourism (it is home to Davos, Klosters and St Moritz) as well as the reliance on public services in some of the more remote areas. The former leads to their usually being slightly less support for UDC Souverainiste type campaigning. I reckon the UDC will pick up seats though, purely as a result of how badly they did last time, and PBD attrition.

The Italian speaking Moesa district is an old hotbed of leftism, but has moved sharply rightwards like neighbouring Ticino.

PDC woes and retiring Federal Councillors
The other bit of nwe in recent weeks is the resignation of three PDC big wigs in protest at current president Gerhard Pfister's Conservative line. He adopted this line in an attempt to react to the UDC's rise and the PDC's ongoing decline. They got just over 10% of the vote in 2015, down from the 20-25% they won in their heyday.

This has, of course, been controversial with the traditionally more "social" wings of the party, and the continued attrition of PDC cantonal seats has contributed to an ever increasing level of protest from those wings. They can now point to the relative good score of the Geneva PDC as proving that taking a more left-leaning line would be a better tactic.

And finally, two Federal Councillors Doris Leuthard (PDC) and Johan Schneider-Ammann (PLR) have announced they will step doen after the 2019 federal elections, sparking  two more succession battles.

I will probably cover this a bit more as it goes on, but safe to say Leuthard has been seen as an effective federal councillor, and her leaving may hurt the PDC even more.

Schneider-Ammann in contrast, isn't so highly thought of. So to celebrate his deparure, I leave you with footage of his most celebrated moment as president of Switzerland from 2016:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ve6RyRduDoc

[parochial boy]

Results are dribbling in, not completely there, but enouigh to have results. And it has been a fairly predictable day, solid rejection of "Monnaie Pleine" and solid Yes vote for the Gambling law, onl small surprise being how strong the yes vote was. Anyway

The Gambling Law, passed with 73% yes. The Swiss voting for a tax rise, what is going on?

Map:


Big language divide, and the biggest Yes coming from Vaud (88.3%), which is not really a surprise as it is probably the most "pro-establishment" canton in the country.

Monnaie Pleine got 24% yes (probably slightly better than expected), and here is the map.


Geneva is the big outlier, with a 40% Yes vote, and actually over 50% in Geneva the commune. Mildly amusing seeing as Geneva is such a major banking centre.

Graubunden elections

No surprises, in the Regierungsrat, the PDC gained a seat at the expense of the PBD (who only just held on to the other one).

Initial results from the Grossrat election seems good for the left and predictably awful for the PBD, there are still four seats to be filled, and that will have to go to a second round but the current breakdown is:

PLR - 35 (+1)
PDC - 30 (-1)
PBD - 21 (-6)
PS - 18 (+3)
UDC - 9 (no change)
Green Liberals - 3 (+1)
Independent - 1

Glarus elections

Results for the Landrat elections:

UDC - 15 (-2)
PLR - 11 (-1)
PBD -8 (-1)
PS - 8 (+1)
Greens - 7 (no change)
PDC - 6  (no change)
Green Liberals - 4 (+2)
Glarus Nord "Our Future" - 1 (+1) (seems to be UDC aligned)

Left and Centre gaining, UDC and PBD losing. Not exactly news at this point.

[parochial boy]

If anyone fancies brigading a poll, click here and pretend you're a PCS voter from Schaffhausen or something. Principally because it annoys me that Tamedia do these open access things that they pass off as legitimate polls because they weight them and whatever.

[parochial boy]

In anticipation of said Tamedia poll, here is the weighted average swing for each of the parties in all cantonal elections since the last election; usually a much better indicator of eventual performance in the federal elections that the opinion polls are.

As calculated by Tages Anzeiger (Swiss German newspaper)



and RTS (Swiss French TV), who have a slightly different calculation:



But the overall jist is the same - the left gaining 1-2% overall; and the PLR gaining the most, but at the expense of the other bourgeois parties.

Bear in mind that the recent uptick for the left, and downturn for the UDC only really started in the last 18 months, so the swing could be slightly larger - and that there are regional differences. For instance, the PS doing better in German Switzerland, and Greens doing better in Romandie.

[parochial boy]

Anyway, the above poll came out, with the following:

UDC - 29.2% (-0.2% on 2015)
PS - 18.0% (-0.8%)
PLR - 16.4% (0.0)
PDC - 10% (-1.6%)
Greens - 7.2% (+0.1%)
Green Liberals - 5.7% (+1.1%)
PBD - 4.7% (+0.6%)
Others - 8.8%

From which we can deduce that a) not much has changed (shock) b) Tamedia are crap (also, shock).

Sightly more interesting are the "important issues" questions, which rate the most important issues as:

Healthcare - 70% say it is an important issue
Pensions - 57%
Migration - 49%
EU relations - 47%
Asylum - 45%

Which means that the UDC pet issues of immigration and asylum (and crime, which barely figures at all) are dropping down the list of issues people care about after years at the top.

September referendums
There will be three federal referenda:
1. To increase the development of pedestrian and cycle paths
2. "For healthy food produced in a fair and ecological manner" - Which is essentially that the confederation should support local produce and fair pricing, and reduce the degree of intensive and monocultural farming
3. "Agricultural sovereignty" - similar to the above in practice, but with the added factor of banning GMOs

Basically, I think there has been a deliberate decision to hold the most boring votes possible after the excitement of "No Billag" and before everyone gets excited about the "foreign judges" vote in November.

In other news, the UDC have collected the signatures for a new "free movement" vote in the near future. This initiative, which is entitles "protect Swiss jobs" or something, will, if passed, have almost no discernible impact on Switzerland's migration policy - the point being that it is one of the most blatant examples of the UDC using the Popular Initiative model as a means to prop up support for the party and get "their" issues back on the agenda, rather than to actually change policy in any way.

[Grand Wizard Lizard of the Klan]

Are there any polls about those referendums? Especially those last two.

[parochial boy]

Probably not before the end of July. Those two are popular initiatives though, so early polling will likely dramatically overestimate support.

[parochial boy]

So, here's a little summer update from Switzerland

The Referendum campaigns haven't really kicked off yet, not even any polling out there as far as I can see.

For the Cycle path initiative, there is pretty much unanimous support in parliament, only the UDC opposing the text, presumably out of sheer bloody mindedness (ie the justification was "the text is superfluous/it's the cantons job anyway")

For aliments équitables (fair food), the key point in the campaign seems to be the part of the text that would mean banning any food imports whose production doesn't match up to Swiss ethical production standards. This, it has been argued, will lead to price increases and would potentially break a number of inetrnational agreements Switzerland is signed up to (ie, even if it passes, the EU would force some fudge like what happened with free movement after 2014). Only the Greens support the initiative.

For food sovereignty, it is the longest text of any object submitted to referendum in about 60 years, which says it all really - there is too much in there for anyone to really get a grasp of the project. Only the Greens support it, although the UDC (the traditional farmers party after all) and the PBD (the UDC splitters) have been fairly warm about the idea behind it.

Beyond that, the only bit of remotely interesting political news in the last month or so was the fact that Romandie is apparently not very enthusiastic about the national holiday (which was 3 days ago) because the Grütli pact (the mythical date on which the confederation was created), is not really something that the French Swiss cantons, which mostly didn't join the confederation until the 19th century, can really identify with. Cue propositions to move the holiday to the 12th of September, to mark the 1848 constitution and the birth of modern Switzerland.

This is mostly an overexaggeration, even if ancient Swiss methodology generally isn't as meaningful in Romandie, but I for one am hoping for both dates to be declared national holidays, to make everyone happy

[parochial boy]

And... first poll for the September votes are out from Tamedia (insert sarcastic comment here), with scores of:

Fair Food
Yes - 64%
No - 33%

Food Sovereignty
Yes - 62%
No - 34%

More bike paths
Yes - 48%
No - 44% (why is this the closest one? it's like the least controversial proposition in the history of uncontroversial propositions..)

Slight funny point is Food Sovereignty having its highest levels of support from PS/Green and UDC voters - an unusual alliance, but not totally surprising.

Anyway, judging by those numbers, the first two subjects will be a good example of how polling turns dramatically against initiatives populaires once the campaigns swing into way.

There is also one more cantonal election this year, in Zug on the 7th of October - and I may at some point write something about the worst canton in Switzerland.

[parochial boy]

GFS.Bern numbers for the September votes

Bike Paths initiative:
Yes - 64%
No - 26%

Fair Food
Yes - 78%
No - 20%

Food Sovereignty
Yes - 75%
No - 22%

In all three cases, higher support in French Switzerland; but anyway, despite the impressive numbers - this is bearing in mind that the campaign has barely begun and there has been virtually no attention paid to the questions so far. So those solid looking Yes votes will fall.

In other news, and I swear I am not cherry picking bad news for right wing parties, the UDC Romand has found itself in a crisis, as within a matter of days it has seen the resignations of the cantonal party presidents for Fribourg, Neuchatel and Valais as well as the UDC Romand campaign chief Kevin Grangier, who was supposed to take the party into the 2019 federal elections.

Bear in mind that, after the high point of 2015 and the election of Guy Parmelin to the federal council, the party was supposed to be riding high in French Switzerland. Instead, it has seen stagnation or decline in cantonal and communal elections (and as disaster in Neuchatel), and no longer has a single executive role in any francophone canton (notwithstanding Pierre-Alain Schnegg in the Jura Bernois - who doesn't really count seeing he was elected by the majority Germanophone canton of Bern as a whole).

All of the resignees have insisted that their moves have nothing to do with poor electoral results, it is down to better/newer opportunities etc... but, well, the events speak for themselves... As things stand, in a best case, the party might hold up at 2015 levels in Romandie next year, which is not what was supposed to happen.

[parochial boy]

Referendum update
Second Tamedia has support for bike paths at 50%-42%; Fair food food drops to 55%-42% and Food sovereignty also drops to 53%-43% which means that, despite strong early number, the two agricultural votes will probably get both rejected. Not surprising considering the near universal opposition on the political scene.

As the campaigns have been underwhelming so far, rather depressingly, the November initiative on "Foreign Judges", another UDC special, is rolling into view.

As a bit of background, the vote would be to amend the constitution to state that Swiss law must take precedency over international law; and that Switzerland will have to "adapt" any international treaties of which it is a signatory in order to achieve this (both future and existing treaties would have to ensure the primacy of Swiss law).

What this means in practice this would mean leaving organisations like the ECJ etc, etc... and having to rewrite god knows how many international agreements. Essentially, it would be nearly impossible to implement in passed, but that is, of course, not the point.

The point being, as a UDC special, the vote is designed mostly to stir the put and stick a UDC issue at the top of the agenda a year out from the federal election Particularly important as their traditional issues of immigration and sovereignty have become much less prominent over the course of the parliament, leading to declining support at cantonal elections. So far so good.

The UDC also know that, if passed, they get to loudly complain about the spirit of the vote not being implemented (as they know full well it can't be), and therefore presen themselves as the standard bearers defending direct democracy from the elite/the government/the left. So even better as far as 2019 goes.

Anyway, true to form, the UDC have enthusasitcally supported the initiative - and every other party will oppose it. A parliamentary committee formed to back a "no" vote already has 137 members - that is, every member of parliament who isn't in the UDC.

Geneva
Geneva also put itself back in the national headlines today, and confirmed it's status as the joke canton of Swiss politics, with news that the cantonal prosecutor has opened a case against the president of the PLR Conseiller d'Etat Pierre Maudet (famous for being tough on crime, hillariously enough).

Maudet is accused of taking an all expenses paid for trip to the Abu Dhabi grand prix, financed by some sheikh who has various financial interests in Geneva, creating all sorts of conflict of interest concerns. The case centres largely around whether this was an "official" or "private" visit, and has been bubbling away all summer I haven't mentioned up to now because, well, I don't really care - but the idea of Maudet going to prison is amusing enough to be worth mentioning.

In other news, the race to replace Doris Leuthard as the PDC's federal councillor has heated up, with big favourite Konrad Graber (who?) announcing he won't stand. People across the country responded with astonishment, being shocked to discover that the PDC still exists.

[parochial boy]

Second GFS.bern poll on the votes in two weeks is out:

Bike paths initiative is at 69% Yes to 25% no

Fair food is 53% Yes to 45% No

And food sovereignty at 49% Yes to 46%

So both the agricultural ones way down now that people are paying attention - it's looking pretty guarateed that both will fail solidly in the end. Although having said that, both votes still have a pretty solid level of support in Romandie (71% fo fair food and 66% fo food sovereignty). So we may finally get a referendum in 2018 where not every canton votes the same way.

[parochial boy]

Kanton Zug (or, translated into english, the Canton of a Train). Here is some background information

Population: 12 people, 600,000 limited companies

Demographics: mostly lawyers and accountants, with a small but growing population of bankers

Religion: Swiss francs, Euros, US Dollars, UAE Dirhams - whatever you have got really

National Motto: "uhh, I think you'll find that tax evasion is illegal, tax avoidance is perfectly legal; and really, we should call it 'tax planning' as it's a far more politically neutral term"

Switzerland, as whole, is a country that has a somewhat poor reputation as far as topics like taxation and fiscal transparency are concerned. So imagine a canton that the rest of the country looks and and thinks "wow, don't you think you've taken that a bit too far?" and you have the canton of Zug. Formerly famous for nothing being the random bit between Zurich and the mountains, and for being the site of Switzerland's most famous mass shooting, Zug's policy makers discovered at some point towards the end of the 20th century that one of the key advantages of having virtually no inhabitants, is that you can charge virtually no taxes, as you don't have any pesky requirements to provide "welfare" of "infrastructure"; and in doing so, enrich yourselves off the back of the lucrative "tax planning" industry. Unsurprisingly, Zug is now home to the European headquarters of a truly stunning number of multinational corporations, as well as multitudes of holding companies, "wealth management" firms and private equity funds, each with slightly fewer genuine living and breathing employees than the last.

It has gone so far, in fact, that it has dragged away companies even from the other low tax cantons in the rest of the country - leading to the irrelevant yokel village in the alpine foothills driving a fiscal race to the bottom across the country, with a knock on effect that can be felt around the world.

Zug is also holding it's cantonal elections on Sunday the 7th of October. Here is its current government -

Regierungsrat
PLR - 2
PDC - 2
UDC - 2
Greens - 1 (seriously)

Kantonsrat
PDC - 22
UDC - 19
PLR - 17
Greens - 7
PS - 7
Green Liberals - 4
Independents - 2
PCS (Christian Social Party) - 2

Unsurprisingly then, Zug's politics tend to lean to the right, being dominated by the two liberal parties (UDC and PLR) and joined by a more right wing than average PDC, who are equally as signed up to the "low tax jurisdiction" consensus (as this is a small, catholic and rural canton, the PDC are the old dominant force). However, for pretty obvious reasons, Zug stands out from other traditionally similar rural, catholic, Swiss German cantons by its much more liberal attitude towards "openness to the world" type issues. It was one of only three German speaking cantons which rejected the 2014 initiative to limit mass migration (the other two were Basel-Stadt and Zurich), although 57% of them voted to ban minarets in 2009, because you've got to be the right kind of foreigner guys, c'mon.

But whatever, this campaign has been particularly quiet, even by the standards of small Swiss German cantons, because Zug's population are, by and large, fairly happy with the state of affairs.

The more interesting, in many respects, is the referendum that is being called in Zug (and neighbouring, equally as awful, Schwyz) that would seek to give cantons "full autonomy to determine their electoral system".

The context for this is a court ruling, which deemed that the Swiss Constitution requires cantons to implement electoral systems that would ensure that everyone is equal under the law. That is that all are equally represented. That is, every canton must introduce proportional representation, and not just PR, but in such a form that constituencies cannot be established that would lead to an effective threshold of more than 10% in any single constituency.

This matters because, in cantons like Zug and Schwytz, two parties in particular get hit by this ruling. On the one hand, the UDC, as the largest single party, know that any reduction in the proportionality of elections will help them. On the other, the PDC, who despite being a declining force, retain enough of a stronghold in their traditional heartland that they would also benefit greatly from any such reform (as an example, they got 11.6% of the vote at the 2015 federal elections, but in the Conseil des Etats, with its two-member constituencies, they are the joint largest party, holding 12 out of 46 seats). Cue, in Zug and Schwytz, where those two parties are at their strongest, we are seeing a push to undo the existing strict requirements in place around PR.

(contrast this with Neuchatel, the only canton in the country with a leftist double majority, which has just implemented single constituency for its cantonal elections - thus aiding the smaller parties which are currently underrepresented).

Point being, this is how you create a constitutional crisis in a a country that doesn't even do politics.