Right-Wing Populist Support Drops in Swiss Vote

[marmar]

from Der Spiegel:



For the first time in decades, support in Switzerland for the right-wing populist SVP party has declined. But with a splintering of the center, that doesn't mean the party's anti-immigration message will be any less prominent. Indeed, the next referendum is already on the horizon.

For 32 years, the right-wing populist Swiss People's Party (SVP) had experienced nothing but success. Their shrill posters -- full of virulent critiques of "mass immigration" and broadsides against Islam -- had attracted more and more voters, making the SVP the strongest party in Switzerland.

But in elections on Sunday, support for the SVP dropped for the first time in over three decades. The party, under the leadership of Christoph Blocher, lost some 3.6 percent relative to elections in 2007, with preliminary results showing a 25.3 percent result for the party. As a result, the SVP will have to vacate eight seats in parliament. The party remains the largest in Switzerland, but its aura of invincibility has been broken. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,793627,00.html

[pampango]

1. Always good to see the right suffer a setback, even in conservative Switzerland.

...during the campaign, the SVP also seemed short on ideas. In the past, the party had set the agenda with its increasingly emphatic rejection of all immigration. Swiss centrist parties were constantly having to scramble to catch up. Furthermore, the SVP manufactured an image for itself as a maverick party outside the mainstream.

During this year's campaign, however, the party's demand for a referendum against "mass immigration" made the SVP seem almost like a caricature of itself. Despite widespread fear within the Swiss population of extensive immigration from the European Union due to the gloomy economic outlook, the SVP's campaign failed to gain traction.

Indeed, even the party's political godfather Blocher, 71, had to concede defeat. In his own campaign for a seat in the Council of States, the upper chamber of Swiss parliament, he came in third place. Blocher is no longer the official head of the party, having passed the reins on to Toni Brunner. But without him, the SVP seems to have lost some of its vigour.

[pampango]

2. "Switzerland's right wing is in retreat. For two decades the anti-immigration and anti-EU SVP

dominated politics. But the elections suggest the Swiss are turning away from its populist policies

The trend in Swiss politics in the last two decades can be summarised as the unstoppable rise of the populist rightwing SVP, the Schweizerische Volkspartei or Swiss People's party. Now, however, the party's programme – consisting of ironclad rejection of the EU, a bitter fight against immigration of all kinds and the demand for uncompromising tax cuts – has lost its popularity. Voters are deserting the SVP for the first time in 20 years.

The SVP's rightwing populism was never entirely comparable with the extreme rightism practised by the French National Front or even the Austrian Freedom party. Extremism is not a tradition in Switzerland, and both its very strong federalism and system of government which combines all the major forces and is held in check by constant referendums, have a moderating influence on party politics. Even so, Switzerland has become the laboratory of the European populist right.

You might think the voters would respond to these threats by becoming even more xenophobic than they were before; or at least that's what the SVP was counting on, launching a campaign against "mass immigration" in the runup to the elections. That's not what happened, though: most people are still convinced immigrants are essential if the economy is to remain successful.

The weakening of the SVP is liable to influence Switzerland's European policy above all. The party is totally against making any concessions to the EU on competing on tax and financial policy. It made cancelling the bilateral treaty on the free movement of people between Switzerland and the EU one of the keystones of its campaign. While these demands were never realistic, they put a great deal of pressure on the Swiss government and have paralysed Swiss policy on Europe completely in recent years. This pressure is now off.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/24/switzerland-right-wing-anti-immigration-svp?newsfeed=true