New parliament, old issues: voters still want social and climate action

Members of the Swiss People's Party celebrating the election result on October 22. © Keystone / Michael Buholzer

The new parliament elected on Sunday is more right-wing and less green – but voters still expect it to fix social problems and move forward with the country’s energy transition, a post-election survey finds.

The right-wing Swiss People’s Party again won over voters with its traditional theme of immigration, reaching the second-best result in its history in the process (27.9%* of votes for the House of Representatives). A post-election survey by the Sotomo institute now shows that immigration was indeed the most important factor influencing voting choice, just ahead of health insurance costs and climate change.

According to the survey, People’s Party voters themselves overwhelmingly (74%) named immigration policy as their reason for voting as they did. The party had something of a monopoly in the area, since no other group managed to gather a majority of its supporters around the issue. However, independence and sovereignty, other priorities of the People’s Party, were decisive for only 21% of its voters.

The big losers on Sunday, the Greens, were not able to carve out a similar situation around the climate. While their supporters were almost exclusively motivated by the climate question, other parties also benefited from it; many voted for the Social Democrats because of their proposed policies to tackle global warming. The left-wing group also mobilised voters by its stances on issues such as social security and healthcare costs.

With its strategy, the People’s Party thus managed to win over voters from all other parties as well as mobilise new ones, the analysis shows. On the contrary, the Greens lost voters to all other parties except for the centre-right Radical-Liberals. Over half the defections from the Green Party went to the Social Democrats, but some also went to the People’s Party, the Centre Party and the Liberal Greens.

Survey details

The post-election poll after the October 22, 2023, elections was conducted by Sotomo on behalf of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC, SWI swissinfo.ch’s parent company). Data was collected between October 21 and October 23. A total of 23,207 voters took part, both on the SBC internet portals and on the Sotomo website. The margin of error is +/- 1.2 percentage points.

Wokeness factor

As for reasons for abandoning one party for another, Sotomo found that almost a third of such defections were due to dissatisfaction with how the rise in health insurance premiums was being tackled. The Social Democrats, and also the Centre Party, benefited from this trend. As for the quarter of all defectors who disagreed with their party’s migration policy, over half of them moved over to the People’s Party.

Debates around gender and wokeness (being aware of prejudice and discrimination) were mentioned most often as an element sparking a shift in party allegiance, along with the polarisation of political debates. A large number of those who were worried about these issues ultimately chose the Centre Party, the survey shows.

Climate change has not gone away

Another takeaway: although the new parliament is now more right-wing and less green, it will still be under pressure to make progress on the country’s transition to sustainable energy: 46% of voters still see this as a priority, Sotomo shows.

“This issue is not just for the Green Party,” Sotomo political scientist Sarah Bütikofer says. The climate law accepted at the ballot box by citizens in June shows there is a recognition that Switzerland has to focus on energy supply and making necessary changes, she says.

Bütikofer says the Greens were the first to talk about the energy transition decades ago – a position which has now become the majority position. “It’s no longer necessary to vote green in order to ensure that parliament tackles this issue,” she says.

Costly health

The rightward shift in parliament also doesn’t mean the disappearance of social themes, nor that citizens’ wallets don’t remain the priority: 66% want the new parliament to find answers to the rise in healthcare costs and insurance premiums.

People seem to have more confidence in the right-wing to bring solutions to social questions. Is this a paradox? Sara Bütikofer doesn’t think so: it’s important to recall that the People’s Party has a large support base among lower-earning segments of the population, she says. “After the tightening of asylum rules, it’s the second-highest priority of the party,” she says.

Translated from French by Domhnall O’Sullivan

*The results as a percentage of voter shares for the House of Representatives were corrected by the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) on October 25, 2023. The new figures have no impact on seat distribution in parliament.