The Swiss general election of 2019: Two green waves are better than one
Green waves have been sweeping much of Europe in elections of all kinds. The Swiss general election on Sunday, however, saw in effect two green waves-one from the Green Party of Switzerland and another from their rivals, the Green Liberals, who split from the former in 2005.
Switzerland was the very first country in the world to elect a Green MP, doing so in 1979, the same year our own Green Party (then called the Ecology Party) fielded enough candidates to receive a party political broadcast, and the Greens have received one in every British general election since. This year, the Greens won 28 seats, 2 1/2 times more than in 2015, and the Green Liberals more than doubled their seat total from 7 to 16. Although their vote share increases were by just 6.1% and 3.2% respectively, the cantonal system meant it translated to seat surges, although the half-cantons (which have only one seat apiece meaning elections there are effectively by first past the post) sadly remained beyond their reach. In particular, the Greens topped the poll in, and won the most seats in, the canton of Geneva, finished second in the Swiss capital of Bern, finished second in Neuchatel which was incidentally also the only canton to elect an MP from the Marxist-Leninist Swiss Party of Labour, and came a close third in Vaud, winning 4 of its 18 seats, equal to the Social Democrats and just one behind the Free Democrats in that canton. Significant breakthroughs include St Gallen, the most conservative of the German-speaking cantons, where both the Greens and the Green Liberals won a seat, and Ticino, the only Italian-speaking canton in Switzerland, where the Greens won their first seat in the canton routinely registering the lowest support for green politics in all Switzerland (in 2015, the Greens polled 3.5%; the Green Liberals only 0.8%); this indirectly cost the regionalist Ticino League one of their seats. One surprise was that the Green Liberals beat the Greens in Zurich, even though they won an equal number of seats apiece (6), attributable to the fact that the Green Liberals' base is almost entirely an affluent urbane one, similar to that of the FDP. The increasing need to tackle man-made climate change, especially in ecologically sensitive Switzerland, resulted in both Swiss green parties experiencing a surge, meaning that MPs from either the Swiss Green Party or Green Liberal Party now make up a total of 22% of MPs in the National Council.
As in many other European countries, it was the establishment parties who lost the most seats as a result of the double green wave. The nationalist Swiss People's Party retained pole position, but lost 12 seats, their worst ever seat loss and furthermore their seat total of 53 is their lowest in 20 years, despite topping the poll in the majority of Swiss cantons. Their vote share in fact only dropped 3.8%, but the green wave meant that the Greens and Green Liberals captured hanging seats that normally went to the SVP by default, due to multi-member Swiss cantons using the d'Hondt system. The Social Democrats and the FDP did not fare quite so badly, losing 4 seats apiece. The Christian Democrats lost two seats due to the green waves, even though their vote share only decreased by 0.2% across Switzerland, having won over some disaffected SVP voters too socially conservative to support green politics in Switzerland either way.
The Conservative Democrats, which split from the SVP, also polled poorly, going down from 7 seats to just 3, partly because they only ever had substantial support in three cantons: Bern, Glarus, and Graubünden, two of which contained SVP branches who stood by the original BDP MPs, and furthermore they have negligible support in French-speaking cantons. The only non-green parties to gain seats in Switzerland's National Council this year were the Evangelical People's Party, a social democratic Christian party, the Federal Democrats, a Swiss counterpart to the hardline Protestant Reformed Political Party of the Netherlands, and solidariteS, a radical socialist party; these three gained one seat each. Surprisingly, the Federal Democrats won their only seat not in conservative St Gallen, which has traditionally had a particularly strong Christian Democrat presence, but in Bern. It was not however surprising that solidariteS won its only seat in Geneva, as the French-speaking cantons have traditionally been more left-wing than German-speaking cantons.
Surprisingly, turnout did not increase as a result of increasing mobilisation for climate change action across the world which played the biggest part in the two green waves in Switzerland-in fact, turnout decreased to 45.1%. The frequent use of referenda mean that turnout in Swiss elections is normally very low by democratic standards, and Swiss environmental standards are already particularly strong and put many EU nations to shame.
Switzerland was the very first country in the world to elect a Green MP, doing so in 1979, the same year our own Green Party (then called the Ecology Party) fielded enough candidates to receive a party political broadcast, and the Greens have received one in every British general election since. This year, the Greens won 28 seats, 2 1/2 times more than in 2015, and the Green Liberals more than doubled their seat total from 7 to 16. Although their vote share increases were by just 6.1% and 3.2% respectively, the cantonal system meant it translated to seat surges, although the half-cantons (which have only one seat apiece meaning elections there are effectively by first past the post) sadly remained beyond their reach. In particular, the Greens topped the poll in, and won the most seats in, the canton of Geneva, finished second in the Swiss capital of Bern, finished second in Neuchatel which was incidentally also the only canton to elect an MP from the Marxist-Leninist Swiss Party of Labour, and came a close third in Vaud, winning 4 of its 18 seats, equal to the Social Democrats and just one behind the Free Democrats in that canton. Significant breakthroughs include St Gallen, the most conservative of the German-speaking cantons, where both the Greens and the Green Liberals won a seat, and Ticino, the only Italian-speaking canton in Switzerland, where the Greens won their first seat in the canton routinely registering the lowest support for green politics in all Switzerland (in 2015, the Greens polled 3.5%; the Green Liberals only 0.8%); this indirectly cost the regionalist Ticino League one of their seats. One surprise was that the Green Liberals beat the Greens in Zurich, even though they won an equal number of seats apiece (6), attributable to the fact that the Green Liberals' base is almost entirely an affluent urbane one, similar to that of the FDP. The increasing need to tackle man-made climate change, especially in ecologically sensitive Switzerland, resulted in both Swiss green parties experiencing a surge, meaning that MPs from either the Swiss Green Party or Green Liberal Party now make up a total of 22% of MPs in the National Council.
As in many other European countries, it was the establishment parties who lost the most seats as a result of the double green wave. The nationalist Swiss People's Party retained pole position, but lost 12 seats, their worst ever seat loss and furthermore their seat total of 53 is their lowest in 20 years, despite topping the poll in the majority of Swiss cantons. Their vote share in fact only dropped 3.8%, but the green wave meant that the Greens and Green Liberals captured hanging seats that normally went to the SVP by default, due to multi-member Swiss cantons using the d'Hondt system. The Social Democrats and the FDP did not fare quite so badly, losing 4 seats apiece. The Christian Democrats lost two seats due to the green waves, even though their vote share only decreased by 0.2% across Switzerland, having won over some disaffected SVP voters too socially conservative to support green politics in Switzerland either way.
The Conservative Democrats, which split from the SVP, also polled poorly, going down from 7 seats to just 3, partly because they only ever had substantial support in three cantons: Bern, Glarus, and Graubünden, two of which contained SVP branches who stood by the original BDP MPs, and furthermore they have negligible support in French-speaking cantons. The only non-green parties to gain seats in Switzerland's National Council this year were the Evangelical People's Party, a social democratic Christian party, the Federal Democrats, a Swiss counterpart to the hardline Protestant Reformed Political Party of the Netherlands, and solidariteS, a radical socialist party; these three gained one seat each. Surprisingly, the Federal Democrats won their only seat not in conservative St Gallen, which has traditionally had a particularly strong Christian Democrat presence, but in Bern. It was not however surprising that solidariteS won its only seat in Geneva, as the French-speaking cantons have traditionally been more left-wing than German-speaking cantons.
Surprisingly, turnout did not increase as a result of increasing mobilisation for climate change action across the world which played the biggest part in the two green waves in Switzerland-in fact, turnout decreased to 45.1%. The frequent use of referenda mean that turnout in Swiss elections is normally very low by democratic standards, and Swiss environmental standards are already particularly strong and put many EU nations to shame.
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