Switzerland - Politics
Election campaigns in Switzerland are not as boring as people abroad generally believe. By September 2023 the election campaign for the federal elections on October 22 was in full swing. Yet the majority of the electorate shuns this major event in Swiss political life, and it attracts little interest from the media or academic world beyond the country’s borders.
Political parties, which receive no state funding, have historically been weak in Switzerland, particularly compared with the biggest interest groups. People sometimes say that the weakness of the parties leads to unprofessional campaigns. But behind the parties, business associations have long played a role in both referendum and election campaigns. In addition, the open list system encourages candidates to invest in their own campaigns. The diversity of players involved in election campaigns has long made it difficult to assess campaign spending accurately. In 2023, for the first time, new rules on the transparency of political financing will apply to federal elections.
The changes in party strength since the early 1990s have been remarkable, in particular the strong growth of the environmental parties and the right-wing Swiss People’s Party at the expense of the traditional parties. It is a marked contrast with the decades from 1940 to 1980. The fact remains that variations in votes are more likely to occur between parties that are politically close than between one bloc and another. The party system is particularly diverse in Switzerland, as we can see from the existence of two environmental parties – one more critical of the market economy, the other more in favor of it.
The campaigning practices used by the Swiss People’s Party were not new. As early as the 1950s, political parties began working with pollsters and advertisers. And there is a lot of continuity in mobilisation practices: parties have been using posters since the 1920s to be visible in the public space. The polemical nature of People’s Party campaigns was nothing new either. As far back as 1979, for example, the Radical Party ran a campaign that was described as “American”, based on the neoliberal slogan “more freedom, less government”. And during the Cold War, anti-communism, which was very pronounced in Switzerland, was often used to stigmatise left-wing parties.
Voter turnout in Switzerland has been falling steadily for several decades and was at 45% in 2019. More flamboyant campaigns, such as those seen in the French presidential election, might lead to higher turnout. In the case of France, it is an ailing democracy, as seen in 2023 with the tensions surrounding pension reform. It’s true that voter turnout in France was still fairly high for the presidential election, but it was declining for all the other elections because people no longer see any point in them. This is the flipside of the extreme importance placed on the presidency in the French system.
And yet these election campaigns are a special moment in the democratic life of the country, when political parties take the stage and try to forge links with the public. Unlike in referenda, which focus on clear questions, the parties are free to put forward any ideas that interest them. That gives a snapshot of political debate in the country. But above all, when a party puts a specific issue on the agenda – environmental protection starting back in the 1960s, immigration, particularly since the 1980s, and so on – it can have long-term effects on the media and political agenda.
In Switzerland, given the large number of ballots, abstention is generally intermittent: many citizens vote when the subject on the ballot interests them. While the rise in abstention in the 1960s and 1970s was a subject of debate at the time, the relatively low turnout at Swiss elections has since become almost normal and is not generally seen as a sign that people are disaffected by democracy.
The proposal to extend political rights to young people over the age of 16, for example, has been on the table for some years. Swiss election campaigns also highlight the situation in a country with high rates of immigration where almost a quarter of the population doesn’t have the right to vote at federal level – a result of a naturalisation policy that is among the most restrictive in Europe. This issue also gives rise to frequent debate.
The Swiss People’s Party (SVP), which campaigned on a pro-neutrality and anti-immigration platform, emerged as the main winner in Switzerland’s general election on 22 October 2023, garnering 28.6% of the vote. Amid the ongoing Ukraine conflict, some politicians and officials in the country had been calling for closer alignment with NATO and the abandonment of strict neutrality.
The result represented an increase of three percentage points from the SVP’s showing in 2019. The Social Democrats trailed behind with 18%, with several other parties receiving less than 15% each. The Green Party appears to have been the main loser with a little over 9% – almost four percentage points less than in the previous election.
The right-wing SVP thus gained nine seats in the 200-seat National Council, bringing the number of its representatives to 62. The SVP has been the most popular political force in Switzerland over the past two decades, but the latest result was among its best on record. The party wants to restrict immigration to keep the country’s population under a threshold of 10 million, citing overstretched infrastructure and a lack of housing. The SVP also insists that Switzerland should remain neutral despite recent geopolitical tensions in Europe.
In August 2023, a policy document released by the Swiss Army detailed plans to step up its military cooperation with NATO “as much as possible.” Swiss military leaders advocated bringing the army’s operations in line with NATO doctrine, as well as joining the EU’s Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) defense framework and its European Sky Shield Initiative. These measures were necessary due to the Ukraine conflict, the report said, claiming that an “epoch of peace in Europe is coming to an end.”
Switzerland has maintained a policy of neutrality since 1815, and did not take sides in either of the two world wars. Since the start of the conflict in Ukraine, the country has imposed sanctions on Russia, taking its cue from the EU, and sent economic aid to Kiev, but has refused to supply weapons or allow other countries to send Swiss arms or ammunition to Ukraine.
However, some members of the Swiss government have been calling for the relaxation of this long-standing foreign policy. The Swiss People’s Party and the Social Democratic Party have been critical of such suggestions. In February 2023, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Russia no longer viewed Switzerland as neutral after it joined the “West’s illegal unilateral sanctions.” The diplomat noted that this move disqualified Bern as a potential mediator in the conflict.
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