Keen cuckoo clock observers will no doubt be aware of Sunday’s election in the gun-toting, bank-ridden concantenated canton-nation called Switzerland. The result was a resounding success for billionaire industrialist Christoph Blocher’s Swiss People’s Party, and for white sheep everywhere. The SVP already holds two of the seven seats on the ruling Federal Council, and is the largest party in the bicameral parliament. As forecast it increased its share of the poll from 27.7% to 29%, continuing its steady progress from the 22% base won in 1999.
Ueli Maurer (who is, in fact, party leader - not Blocher) said, “We have reached the highest score ever since this electoral system began.”
This is impressive by any nationalist measure, and compares with the solid if, now, unspectacular success of Vlaams Belang in Flemish Belgium. Notwithstanding the SVP’s entrenchment within the power structure, and its consequent and enviable freedom to speak only a lightly varnished truth, there are some interesting parallels between the two parties.
Both present a substantially Conservative - not overtly racial nationalist - prospectus to the electorate. Both have a spiritual disconnection with their French-speaking social democratic fellow-nationals. Both have to play the self-righteous left’s game and deny that they are “racist”, and are pilloried all the same:-
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But the SVP has its share of power in the most democratic country in Europe, and it shows in campaign policies like:-
Foreign residents who commit crimes in Switzerland should be expelled after serving their sentences. If they are minors, the parents should be expelled with them.
The construction of minarets - the traditional tower of a mosque - should be forbidden in Switzerland.
When foreign residents of a commune want to acquire Swiss citizenship, the commune should continue to have the right to put their applications to a popular vote.
Foreigners who do not learn the language of the area in which they are resident must leave the country.
The party will surely now claim a mandate to push forward with these ideas. It will be interesting to see to what extent it succeeds.