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Consensus politics and power-sharing

The term “consensus politics” describes the ongoing effort to achieve a balanced compromise among political parties and among the different cultural, linguistic and social communities that make up Switzerland. One of the most obvious aspects of the Swiss power-sharing system is the way in which the distribution of cabinet seats reflects the relative strengths of the political parties, a practice first adopted in 1959.

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SWI swissinfo.ch - a branch of Swiss Broadcasting Corporation SRG SSR