Parties battle it out for centre stage

Keystone

Two months before the Swiss federal elections, political parties are jockeying for position in the race to parliament in Bern - but their tactics are quite different.

The rightwing Swiss People’s Party and the centre-right Christian Democratic Party took advantage of the summer lull to try to appeal to the public using methods that were poles apart.

On August 1, the People’s Party inundated the nation’s letter boxes with an initiative calling for foreigners who have committed a crime to be thrown out of the country. Many Swiss say integration and foreigners are their main concerns.

The Christian Democrats took a different line, offering their party members on the online auction site ebay.ch. For example a coffee break with Swiss Economics Minister Doris Leuthard went for more than SFr6,500 ($5,400).

They wanted to make the point that they are the party of the people, giving the money raised to a child cancer research foundation.

“The parties are competing with new ideas to draw the attention of the media,” said Pascal Sciarini, a professor of political science at Geneva University.

“If the launching of a people’s initiative is a classical instrument, the Christian Democrats chose a new formula to get its voice heard.”

Personalising politics

Sciarini said such a strategy was part of a trend towards personalising politics in Switzerland.

“The heads of parties, including ministers, are all invited to make their contribution to the campaign.”

There is no shortage of ideas. The centre-left Social Democratic Party has launched an initiative that aims to stop tax abuses. A host of party candidates are travelling around the country and will have visited about 30 towns by September 15.

About 300 Socialists recently adopted a charter in Basel proposing a reform of federalism that gives more weight to towns so that they can be represented in the Senate, the chamber that represents the cantons.

But the Social Democrats and the centre-right Radicals also use conventional means by holding news conferences on specific topics. Sciarini says there is no particular recipe.

“What counts is knowing how the message is getting across to the public.”

Barometer

The latest electoral barometer – the fifth in a series of eight – shows that the People’s Party’s campaign is considered by far the most visible. However, in terms of impact, the advance is not so clear.

Despite the different strategies and the intensification of the campaigns, there is a trend towards a “permanent electoral campaign”.

“Several years ago, it was limited to the four or six weeks before the elections,” said Sciarini.

This change he said was due to the People’s Party, which had invented a political style that consisted of permanently occupying the media and the political agenda for electoral purposes.

The party’s rise in power throughout the country has resulted in a progressive nationalisation of the federal elections.

Loyalty

There’s a good deal at stake for a political party. It first has to develop loyalty among its electorate, that is 60-65 per cent of the people who vote for it. Then it has to gain new voters – young people and those who usually do not vote – along the way.

Studies dating back to 1999 show that one out of four or five voters changes his or her mind during the electoral campaign.

“These are people who thought they would not vote but actually end up voting for one party or another,” Sciarini says. But only one out of ten people actually changes parties.

Despite all the parties’ efforts, sometimes Lady Luck gives a boost to the electoral machine.

For example the Greens, which have been campaigning on a climate ticket, have been showing gains in the opinion polls for several months and they should receive a boost from the recent flooding in Switzerland.

swissinfo, Abigail Zappetti

Strength of the parties

The Swiss People’s Party is the strongest party and looks like staying that way on October 21. It won 26.7% of the votes in 2003 and the latest opinion poll for this year gave it 26.2%.

With 23.3% of votes in 2003 the Social Democrats could be the big losers, with the poll saying it would lose 1.7% of votes.

It said the Radicals (17.3% in 2003) would lose 1.1%, while the Christian Democrats would maintain their 14% share of the votes.

The Green Party is expected to make a gain from 7.4% in 2003 to more than ten per cent.

Other smaller parties vary from one to two per cent.