Swiss Elections & Politics (Next election 2019)

[parochial boy]

So it is a bit late in the day, but I made a map of how the communes of Geneva voted at the 2015 federal election.

Red is the PS (SDP)
Blue in the PLR (FDP)
Dark Green is the UDC (SVP)
Light Green is the Greens
Orange is the PDC (CVP)



In sum, pretty clear division between the solid red built up centre and the blue suburbs.

The red is mostly working class areas, as well as the City of Geneva and its southern neigbour Carouge, which are both pretty bohemian (by Swiss standards).

The blue areas are wealthy, detached villa land, including the uber rich lakeside suburbs.

The splodges where UDC won are largely more rural (again, by Geneva standards), except for the northerly most one, Meyrin, which is a working class-ish satellite town.

I have no idea what is with the area of PDC strength in the south of the Canton. Geneva is majority Catholic these days, but that is entirely down to immigrants, who are not the PDC's traditional consituency by any means.

The Green victory in Presinge, in the east is pretty strange as well, as it is by and large a wealthy dorma village. I initally put it down to a statistical anomaly, as they won by the equivalent of less than three ballots, but they won last time round as well; and only just lost in Puplinge, the commune immediately to thhe south-west.

[parochial boy]

Three more referenda concluded today -

The initiative to raise AVS (Social Security) was rejected by 59.5%

The "green economy" initiative was rejected by 64%

While the snoopers charter was passed by 65%

So unsurprising results, but interesting in that, once again, the language divide reared its head on the green economy and AVS votes.

4 French speaking cantons voted to raise AVS; and, while only Geneva passed the Green economy, French speaking Switzerland as whole voted well to the left of the German speaking areas.

[parochial boy]

Opinion polling suggests it could be close, but I think No will win.

There is a classic pattern in referenda where the anti-"establishment" position (i.e. the position that the Federal Council opposes) leads in the earlier polls, which narrow as the referendum closes in, and the establishment position ends up winning. This has been the case here, Yes was on 57% earlier in November, and at 48% the last poll I saw.

The question was last asked in 1999, and 33% voted to end nuclear power. I suspect it will be close this time.

[parochial boy]

No wins, with 54.2% of the vote.

4 French speaking cantons voted yes, as did both Basels. So nothing unusual, as this is another issue that Romandie consistently votes to the left on.

In somewhat encouraging news though, the inhabitants of the Canton of Zug rejected 40 million francsof spending cuts, meaning that the disgusting little "Fiscal Paradise"is going to have to... raise taxes!

[parochial boy]

Three referenda take place on the 12th of February:

1. To facilitate the naturalisation of third generation immigrants.

2. Creates a special fund for for development of roads

3. To accept the RIE III (Réforme de l’imposition des enterprises) on company taxation reform.

The RIE III reforms are the most interesting one here, as it has come about as a result of OECD and EU pressure for Switzerland to clear up its game with regards to corporate taxes.

At the moment, certain Companies that are registered in Switzerland (for example, holding companies, or which generate virtually all of their revenue abroad) are allowed to pay much lower corporate tax rates than those earning in Switzerland (rates vary Canton to Canton, but using Geneva as an example, the corporate tax rate is around 24%, but closer to 11% for these "special" companies.

The RIE III reforms abolish this double standard. However, opposition to the reforms has come form the left (the Socialists ran the petition to set up the referendum), on the basis of the fact that the reforms in effect amount to a massive tax cut. Corporate tax rates across the board will fall to around 12% (depending on Canton), and potentially even further thanks to a number of tax deductions (for instant a Patent Box, R&D, increased capital allowances); and larger companies will benefit disproportionately. This will basically amount to a decrease in tax revenues of about CHF 1-3 billion, depending on which levels of government we are talking about.

Not much polling about so far , and in any case, polling for referenda is normally useless, but it looks like the naturalisations and roads will pass very comfortably. RIE III is either 15% ahead, or 3% behind depending on the poll, but I expect it will pass comfortably in the end.

A point of (minor) constitutional interest is that the first two of these referenda are "mandatory" referenda, as they relate to constitutional changes which must be subject to a referendum. The tax reforms is an "optional" referendum as it relates to a law that was passed, but which was challenged by the Socialist Party, who obtained 50,000 signatures in a referendum.

The third type of referendum is a "popular initiative", which could be basically any questions for which a petition obtains 100,000 signatures.

[parochial boy]

It makes it easier for third generation immigrants to go through the naturalisation process.

At the moment, there are two ways of becoming Swiss, the Standard way and the facilitated way. The difference between the two basically comes down to the fact that the standard naturalisation process is longer and more expensive, and there are more hoops to go through.

At the moment, the facilitated process is I think mostly used by spouses/partners, and the new law would extend this process to third generation immigrants who fill certain conditions.

[parochial boy]

The UDC are up to their old tricks



Because letting third generation Serbians/Italians/Portugese become Swiss with a bit less hassle really screams RADICAL ISLAM!!

[parochial boy]

The UDC are up to their old tricks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysYg6sWD8B4

This is why Suisse Romande should become independent to be honest...

[parochial boy]

This is now only a week away, and polling has been as schizophrenic as ever, especially on the naturalisation question, which is either just ahead of miles ahead, take your pick.

Here are the results of the latest round of polling.



The tax reforms look like they could wind up much closer than I thought, but what is very interesting is that the no vote looks much stronger in German Switzerland than French Switzerland. This could wind up being a virtually unheard of case of the Germans actually voting to the left of the Romands.

There has been some speculation as to why this is - some commentators pointing out that the French Swiss are more receptive as the reforms are already in place in the Canton of Vaud.

I would also add that Geneva and Vaud, which together make up the majority of Francophone Switzerland, and are both usually two of the most left wing cantons, have both always had something of an, er, weak spot when it comes to tax haven type issues.

This is probably because both cantons have an unusually high number of tax exiles and foreign companies seeking a low tax regime; so the argument that higher corporate taxes would destroy the local economy goes it a bit further there.

Also, playing on the old stereotypes, remember that the reforms have been pushed by the EU and OECD; and while the Germans largely hate foreigners, the French Swiss love nothing more than rolling over and doing what they are told by their foreign overlords.

[parochial boy]

Results are now in (the recount in the Canton of Neuchatel is complete), and it is that rarest of things, a good day for the Swiss left.

the RIE III tax reforms have been heavily rejected, with 59.1% against. map here.

Looking at the map, the No vote was strongest in Bern and Jura, which are respectively home to the federal capital and the country's most left wing canton. The handful of yes votes roughly correspond to the cantons that are more economically dependent on being low tax; notably Zug, but also Vaud. Geneva narrowly rejected the reforms though.

Easier naturalisations has passed with 60.4% margin, with a predictable map (the highest "No" coming from Central and North East Switzerland, the highest "yes" coming from Francophone Switzerland). The only interesting result is Valais, which voted strongly yes, and seems to be be voting more and more like the rest of Suisse Romande (it has traditionally been strongly right wing).

The road fund passed with 62%. Boring map here.

[parochial boy]

Cantonal elections take place in Valais on the 5th of March.

As a bit of background, Valais in one of three officially French-German bilingual cantons (with Fribourg and Bern), although it is majority French speaking (about 75%) and increasingly so, as almost all demographic growth is happening in the more urban Francophone part of the canton.

It is one of most touristic areas of the country, being in the hear of the alps, the home of the Cervin/Matterhorn and ski resorts like Crans-Montana and Verbier.

Politically, the canton is staunchly conservative, and by far the most right wing part of La Suisse Romande. This is usually part down to it being heavily Catholic, and has remained a pretty devout region even while other Catholic areas of French Switzerland (Jura, Fribourg) have secularised. It is also pretty rural, there are no big towns, the capital (Sion) only being home to about 30,000 people.

Unsurprisingly, the key economic factors are the tourism industry and hydro-electric power. As a result, the construction industry is a major factor, and one of the key political issues is the fallout of the "initiative Weber", which limited the construction of second homes, thus somewhat crippling the local construction industry.

The Valaisans do also have something of a stereotypical reputation among the French Swiss, largely based on their religious devotion, socially conservative attitudes, and their pride in their home canton.

Predictably, there is a language divide within the Canton. The Alemannic Haut-Valais is more right wing than francophone Bas-Valais, and votes very much like other German speaking rural areas (Appenzell Inherroden for example), meaning, to the right of anywhere else in the country. This isn't always an easy divide to spot on an electoral map though, as one party, the PDC has traditionally dominated the whole canton. The difference is that the rich man's party, the PLR, and the left wing parties don't get quite as totally annihilated in the Valais Romand.

Results last time were, in the conseil d'etat:

PDC - 3
UDC - 1
PS - 1

and for the grand Conseil:
PDC - 61
PLR - 28
UDC - 21
PS - 14
PCS (a small left wing catholic party) - 3
Greens - 3
Entremont Autrement (local issues) - 1

This time round, the expectation is of a battle between the right wing UDC and the Centrist/Centre-Right/Right wing (its a pretty big tent) PDC.

The election has received a fair amount of attention as it is largely being presented as a battle between two big rivals, Oskar Freysinger of the UDC and Christophe Darbelley of the PDC.

Freysinger is an UDC hardliner, and the most notorious UDC politician in French Switzerland. In contrast, Darbelley is seen as a PDC moderate, and was a key player in the 2007 coup which saw Christoph Blocher removed from the Federal Council. So there is a fair degree of mutual loathing between the two men.

Beyond that, it is a battle for the PS to keep their one seat on the executive, and for the PLR to stop their continued rot.

[parochial boy]

Results

For the Conseil d'Etat

1 : Christophe Darbellay (PDC) : 51160 voix
2 : Jacques Melly (PDC) : 50518 voix
3 : Roberto Schmidt (PDC) : 49964 voix
4 : Esther Waeber-Kalbermatten (PS) : 34120 voix
5 : Stéphane Rossini (PS) : 32788 voix
6 : Oskar Freysinger (UDC) : 30857 voix
7 : Nicolas Voide (Dissident PDC - standing with the UDC) : 26305 voix
8 : Jean-Michel Bonvin (PCS - standing with the PS) : 22763 voix
9 : Frédéric Favre (PLR) : 22731 voix
10 : Sigrid Fischer-Willa (UDC) : 20185 voix
11 : Thierry Largey (Greens) : 17890 voix
12 : Jean-Marie Bornet (RCV) : 17389 voix
13 : Claude Pottier (PLR) : 16798 voix

The big shock being Freysinger finishing in 6th, which, if it reproduces itself in the second round would see him off the council, and replaced by a second socialist.

He had a terrible night, given that he was the outright winner last time. The initial theory is that the Valaisans had enough of his posturing and outrageousness (5th placed Rossinni even when as far as saying that the people of Valais wanted a "politician, not a clown".

For the Grand Conseil:

PDC - 55 seats (-6)
PLR - 26 seat (-2)
UDC - 23 seats (+2)
"Alliance de Gauche" (mainly the PS + PCS) - 18 seats (no change)
Greens - 8 seats (+6)

So, in contrast to their excellent result in the executive race, a pretty torrid result for the PDC. This has largely been put down to the changing demographic balance of the Canton, in particular the rise of the French speaking areas compared to the solidly orange German Haut-Valais, which meant that Francophone Valais gained four seat at the expense of the German speaking part.

The PLR results were poor, and the UDC did reasonable, although the major winners are the Greens, who are now big enough to have their own parliamentary group.

[parochial boy]

Final Results for the second round:

Christophe Darbellay (PDC) - 54,338 votes
Jacques Melly (PDC) - 57,582 votes
Roberto Schmidt (PDC) - 59,616 votes
Esther Waeber-Kalbermatten (PS) - 53,990 votes
Frédéric Favre (PLR) - 44,644 votes
Oskar Freysinger (UDC) - 42,520 votes
Stéphane Rossini (PS) - 40,429 votes

So the final makeup of the Conseil d'Etat is
PDC - 3
PLR - 1
PS - 1

In all, an impressive result for Favre, who was 7th in the first round. This is mainly thanks to the PDC, who called to vote for the PLR candidate, in order to keep out Freysinger and Rossini. Favre gained hugely in support, especially in the PDC heartland of the Haut-Valais (he got 6 times more votes there than he did in the first round). This is something both, the UDC and PS have noted with some scepticism, seeing as it is already hard enough to tell the PLR and PDC apart anyway.

The big news though, is really the ejection of Freysinger from the government, as he was by far the most well known figure on the council. Another rejection of populism perhaps?

Next up are Cantonal elections in Neuchatel, the first round being held on the 2nd of April.

[parochial boy]

So, Neuchatel. As things stand, here is the breakdown of the government of Neuchatel.

Conseil d'Etat

PS - 3
PLR - 2

Grand Conseil
PLR - 35
PS - 33
UDC - 20
Greens - 12
Parti Ouvrier et Populaire - 8 (Popular Workers Party, which is what the communist/far left Parti Suisse du Travail/Swiss Labour party are known as locally)
GreenLiberals - 5
SolidaritéS - 1 (another far left party)
PDC - 1

Neuchatel is traditionally one of the most left wing Cantons of Switzerland, and one of the few to regularly elect left wing governments.

Local politics tends to play of the big division between the liberal and wealthy "Littoral" of the banks of Lake Neuchatel; against the more working class and populist areas in the Jura mountains.

This has been a pretty big factor even this year, as a result of a somewhat tense local referendum on whether to keep open the hospital in the mountain region's largest town, La Chaux-de-Fonds.

Electorally speaking, this divide shows up very distinctly on any electoral map. The Lakeside votes overwhelmingly PLR, with the PS winning in Neuchatel itself and its suburbs.

In contrast, the rural areas of the mountains vote UDC. The towns of Le Locle and La Chaux de Fonds are staunchly left wing, both voted for the POP at the last federal election, and Le Locle even has a self identified Communist as its mayor.

The major (although somewhat declining) industry of the traditionally working class are is the watchmaking industry. Indeed, it is always something a an amusing irony that the two most left wing towns in Switzerland also produce some of the world's most high end luxury watches (Tag Heuer for example).

Big issues this time round are the ever present mountain/lakeside divide, but also the peculiarly Swiss issue of the "frontalier". These are commuters who cross the border from France into Switzerland in order to take advantage of the higher wages, which has been exacerbated in recent years by the strength of the Swiss franc.

These frontaliers have, in particular, been blamed for depressing local wages and being the root cause of the fact that Neuchatel has an unemployment rate of 6.6%, almost twice the national rate of 3.6%.

This might help the local UDC this time round (the canton has been highly resistant up until now), but it is worth noting is that, equally controversial, are Frontaliers who commute into Neuchatel from other Swiss Cantons. Neuchatel has much higher tax rates than most of the rest of the country, and therefore many people choose to live outside (largely in Vaud or Bern) and commute to the canton for work. This is particularly harmful for the local economy, as when someone commutes from France, they pay their taxes in France, but their local municipality has to repay a portion of this tax to the canton of Neuchatel. This is not the case with cross-Cantonal commuters, so there is no requirement for Bern or Vaud to repay any taxes to Neuchatel, depriving the canton of a fairly hefty tax stream.

[parochial boy]

Results for the Conseil d'etat:


Nobody scores over 50% so there should be a second round, although potentially not given how far ahead the top 5 are.

In any case, it looks like the three Socialist and two PLR incumbents will all be re-elected. Dissapointing for the PLR, who would have hoped to win back the majority.

The real dissapointment though, is the UDC, who actually won a seat four years ago (Yvan Perrin, who resigned a year later). This time round, they hugely underperformed expectations, not able to place any better than 9th, and all three of them even finished behind Nago Humbert of the far left POP. It also makes it a third successive dissapointment for the UDC this year.

For the Grand Conseil:

PLR - 43 seat (+8)
PS - 32 (-1)
Greens - 17 (+5)
UDC - 9 (-11!)
POP - 6 (-2)
GreenLiberals - 4 (-1)
SolidaritéS  - 2 (+1)
PDC - 2 (+1)

Total Right - 58 seats (-3)
Total Left - 57 seats (+3)

Big winners are the PLR and the Greens. The PS held up better than expected (the whole hospital drama was blamed on them), and the UDC having a total nightmare. 2017 really isn't treating them well so far.

[parochial boy]

There will be no second round, so the Conseil d'Etat will be the top 5.

The UDC crisis has continued, though, as one of their three Conseil d'Etat candidates, and outoing president of the Conseil Général, Xavier Challandes, has left the party. Apparently he realised that the party wasn't the greatest place for a pro-immigration, economically left wing environmentalist. This means that the left now have a de facto majority in both the Conseil d'Etat and Conseil Général.

A lot of ink has been spilled over the UDC's generally awful 2017 up to now, having lost of RIE III, left on nationality reform, seen it's most famour Swiss French politician lose in Valais, and now suffer it's worse reverse, basically ever, in Neuchâtel. The party has never gone so sharply backwards in an election.

Mostly the blame has been laid at the door of local factors, poor campaigns, and the Swiss turning up their noses at right-wing populism in the light of the rise of Trump, Brexit and Le Pen. Personally, I think the RIE II vote has been a factor. The UDC was always the party of "sovereignty", but on this vote, it seemed to choose economic liberalism over "sovereignty", and ceded the patriotic argument to the left.

Elections coming up in the spiritual homeland of Swiss latte-liberalism, Vaud on the 30th of April, where a joint PS-Green quatro is trying to maintain the left's majority in Conseil d'Etat.

There is also a referendum on the 21st of May on converting to exlcsuvely using renewable energy, which includes ending the use of nuclear power, by 2050.

[parochial boy]

A couple of votes on the horizon; cantonal elections in Vaud on the 30th of April; a referendum on A couple of votes on the horizon; cantonal elections in Vaud on the 30th of April; a referendum on eradicating all fossil fuels and nuclear power by 2050; and the Landsgemeindes in Appenzell-innerrhoden and Glarus.

30th April - Vaud Cantonal elections
The left is trying to hold on to its majority in the Conseil d'Etat. Currently the breakdown is:

PS - 3
PLR - 3
Greens - 1

and the Grand Conseil is:

PLR - 46
PS - 40
UDC - 27
Greens - 19
GreenLiberals - 7
PDC - 4
POP/PST - 3
SolidaritéS - 2
"Vaud Libre" (regionalist/centrists) - 2

Vaud is the largest, by far, French speaking canton, and in the eyes of both the Swiss Germans and many other Romands, often serves as an archetype of Romandy - being seen as politically liberal, internationalist and somewhat left leaning (although it is one of the more "low tax" cantons).

That said, as it is the biggest Francophone canton, it is also the most diverse, and has some of the most interesting electoral geography.

It is one of the most economically successful cantons in the country, high growth, high employment, high wages (not suggesting that this has anything to do with it being a tax haven). As such, unsurprisingly, the current polling at the moment seems to indicate a continuation of the status quo.

21st May - referendum on renewable energy

An optional referendum, launched by the UDC, to contest the energy law that seeks to source all Swiss energy from renewable sources by 2050; including a progressive exist from Nuclear power.

Polling so far indicates a yes lead by 56%-42%.

Predictably, support is strongest in French speaking Switzerland (69%) and lowest with the Germans (52%).

The left and the PDC are supporting the initiative, which is being defended by the current president, Doris Leuthard of the PDC. UDC are opposed and the PLR are pretty split. The link has a breakdown of support by party identification.

Landsgemeinde - Appenzell-Inerrhoden (30th April) and Glarus (7th May)
A minor curiosity of Swiss politics is coming up in these two cantons. the Landsgemeinde. This is where all eligible voters converge in the town square to debate and vote on legislation, a practice that has died out in the rest of the country (for obvious reasons).

I'm not really sure what sought of things they talk about, but given that this is Appenzell, probably hot button issues like whether it should be legal for women to wear trousers; or if being foreign should be a capital crime.

[parochial boy]

Vaud results:

Conseil d'Etat;
Pascal Broulis (PLR) - 60.4% Elected
Pierre-Yves Maillard (PS) - 59.9% Elected
Jacqueline de Quattro (PLR) - 56.4% Elected
Philippe Leuba (PLR) - 55.7% Elected
Nuria Gorrite (PS) - 55.4% Elected
Béatrice Métraux  (Greens) - 48.8%
Cesla Amarelle (PS) - 43.6%
Jacques Nicolet (UDC) - 40.3%
Toto Morand (PdR - "nothing" party) - 8.6%
Pointet François (Green Liberals) - 8.4%
Sylive Villa (Allied Centre) - 7.2%
Céline Misiego (Ensemble à Gauche) - 6.3%
Hadrien Buclin (Ensemble à Gauche) - 6.1%
Serge Melly (Allied Centre) - 6.1%
Yvan Luccarini (Ensemble à Gauche) - 5.8%

24heures have this map by commune.

There will be a second round to determine the last two spots on the council, likely to be fought between the Métraux (Greens), Amarells (PS) and Nicolet (UDC). I suspect it will the the green and the UDC in the end, which would flip the executive over to the right.


Grand Conseil
PLR - 49 (+3)
PS - 37 (-3)
UDC - 25 (-2)
Greens - 21 (+2)
GreenLiberals - 7
Allied Centre (PDC and Vaud Libre) - 6
Ensemble à Gauche (combined POP and SolidaritéS) - 5 (NC)

Total left - 53
Total Right - 74
Total Centre - 13

No surprises, almost no change in the grand scheme of things - the Greens gain slightly from their allies, the PS. Likwise, UDC lose slightly to the advantage of the their allies, the PLR. The centrists keep the balance of power.

[parochial boy]

Some results:

In the clean energy referendum, Yes wins comofortably with 58.2% support.
Here is a map:


No suprises to see much stronger support in francophone areas (over 70% in Vaud and Geneva; over 60% in all the French speaking cantons).

The only No votes coming, predicatably, from the rural mountain cantons and from Aargau, which is home to the main nuclear power stations in the country and is unsurprisingly a little less enthusiastic about withdrawing from nuclear power.

In the second round of the Vaud cantonal elections, the results are:
Béatrice Métraux  (Greens) - 50% elected
Cesla Amarelle (PS) - 43.9% elected
Jacques Nicolet (UDC) - 39.7%
Isabelle Chevalley (GreenLiberals) - 38%
Guillaume Morand (PdR) - 9.7%
Sylvie Villa (Centrists) - 6.4%

map

which means that the left keeps its majority in the Vaud conseil d'etat.

(all of which is very important because, for the first time in my life, it looks like the left is winning!)

[parochial boy]

This Sunday, the 18th of June, the town of Moutier is voting to decide on whether to join the Canton of Jura, or stay in the Canon of Bern, in what is promised to be the final stage of the "Question Jurassienne", the decades, centuries even, old linguistic and religious dispute over the Jura region of North East Switzerland.

As a bit of background, the "Question Jurassienne" refers to the dispute that led to the secession of what is now the canton of Jura from Bern in 1979, after a long, tense period which saw what is quite possibly Switzerland's only experience of domestic terrorism.

What is now the Jura, along with the French speaking Jura Bernois district of Bern, were given to Bern as part of the fallout of the Napoleonic wars (as a concession for Bern losing what is now Vaud), and over the next century and a half, the French speaking Jurassiens fought to retain their language, and autonomy from Bern (a small point of interest, is that in contrast to the rest of Francophone Switzerland, which is Francoprovençal speaking, the traditional dialect of the Jura is Franc-Comtois, which is a Langue d'oïl). Eventually, in the 1970s, what is now the canton of Jura voted to break away. However, only the Catholic norther part of the region did so, with the Protestant southern part opting to remain in the  (also Protestant but German speaking) Canton of Bern.

Since then, a number of referenda have been held in the Jura Bernois on whether or not to join the Canton of Jura. The sticking point being the regions largest town, Moutier, which at the most recent attempt (in 2013) voted to join the Jura, in contrast to the rest of the region.

The referendum on Sunday has therefore been promised as a once and for all final decision on the border between the two cantons, and the indication is that it could go either way.

[parochial boy]

In other news of course, Didier Burkhalter of the PLR has resigned from the Federal Council, he will officially step down on 31 October.

He had been the Federal Councillor responsible for Foreign Affairs, and resigned after the breakdown of negotiations covering a variety of topics with the EU. He was probably the most anonymous member of the Federal Council in all honesty, and was never really the best guy to head up negotiations with the EU, especially in the rather sensitive period following on from the mass immigration vote in 2014.

A successor will be elected on the 20th September. Magic Formula obliging, the new federal councillor will be a member of the PLR, and as per tradition, will be either Swiss French or Italian. The Ticinese are probably going to put up a major claim to have a Swiss Italian names, as it has been a while since one has sat on the Federal Council.

This means that the early favourite is probably Ignacio Cassis, the most well known of the Ticino delegation to the Conseil National. It might prove tricky to bring left-wing Councillors on board, as a result of Cassis's being blamed for breaking up a compromise on health insurance and social security, which has made him profoundly unpopular with the PS and Green delegations to Bern.

[parochial boy]

Moutier has voted to join the canton of Jura, buy a margin of 51.7% - 48.3%.

That was supposed to be then end of the Question Jurassienne, but with the Francophone Bernese districts of the Jura Bernois losing its only town of any substance, I suspect it won't be the end of things.

Logistically, it is very hard to imagine how a community of under 50,000 people will manage things while submerged by a million German speakers. Already, it looks like some neighbouring communes will be organising similar votes later on in the year

[parochial boy]

Once a referendum has happened, you have kind of just got to accept things. And this has been such an emotional topic that it probably wouldn't go down to well to look like you were interfering.

It would also look especially bad for anyone based in Bern to look like they were trying to stop the move.

[parochial boy]

Something I was wondering about the 2014 abortion funding referendum: Valais voted pretty much in line with the rest of the nation, 70% against stopping public financing.  And yet in 2002, it voted against the legalization referendum, the only other canton to do so being Appenzell-I.  I wonder why such a dramatic change between these votes.  

I think their could be a few factors at play here, so will try to summarise

First is that the PDC CVP backed a no vote in 2002 and in 2014; and Valais, being solidly PDC probably followed this line. Public opinion around referenda can tend to be very volatile, so to a degree, parties can have a fairly major effect on how people vote (a good recent example of this is Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf critcisms of the coporate tax reforms, which led to most PBD voters rejecting them).

Appenzell-Innerhoden is also a strong PDC area as well. But it is... a bit special politically speaking.

Second, Valais, like the country at large has secularised, when it was traditionally a notoriously religious and conservative are.

It has also been remarked on that Valais does seem to be voting more and more like the rest of French Switzerland (notably, it rejected the 2014 mass immigration initiative; and voted to the left of the country on the naturalisation reform earlier this year - both of which might not have been historically expected.

This ties into the demographic change that the canton has been experiencing, it is becoming increasingly urban and Francophone as virtually all the population growth is occuring in the French speaking part of the canton - as an example, German speaking Valais grew by 3% during 2000 to 2005, during which time, the French bit grew by 9%, and most of this growth has been in the larger towns of Sion and Sierre (which itself went from being majority German to overwhelmingly French in a surprisingly short time frame).

Any way, in sum, Valais has trended left, which you can see here, which is a cool tie in to the maps you posted earlier - you can see that the towns in Valais (Sion, Monthey in particular) have moved quite sharply in a liberal and leftist direction.

[parochial boy]

Immigration is much higher in Francophone Valais. Look at the map below, which is a map of foreigners by commune, and the area of high (bluer shades) immigration in Valais are basically a perfect fit for the French speaking areas (the exceptions being Zermatt, Saas-Fee and Leukerbad, which are all glitzy resort towns).

As for why French speaking Valais has higher immigration, it is basically where all the urban areas of the canton are concentrated (Sion, Martigny, Monthey, Sierre). Germanic Valais, on the other hand, is very rural and quite notoriously isolated. It also fits a general pattern whereby Francophone Switzerland has higher levels of immigration than German Switzerland, which you can also sort of pick up on the map (bear in mind that area of Grisons with high immigration is also very sparsely populated).



The PDC line on the vote was along the lines of being opposed to a reform that would financially penalise women wanting an abortion; in particular as it would excessively hurt women on lower incomes and undermine the Swiss social welfare net. I would say it was a case of the centrist/social-market wing of the party trumping the socially conservative wing.