Four parties launch campaigns for 2023 elections

Green Party delegates vote on Saturday © Keystone / Ennio Leanza

With exactly one year to go before the federal elections, the Swiss People’s Party, the Radical-Liberal Party, the Liberal Green Party and the Green Party have set out their stalls and their ambitions.

The Liberal Greens and the Greens are each claiming a seat in the seven-seat government, the Radical-Liberals are building on their recent successes and the People’s Party is pursuing traditional themes.

The right-wing People’s Party said it wants to win another 100,000 votes next October, making its central issues the reduction of immigration, the defence of purchasing power and the fight against climate policy. The People’s Party was the strongest party in the 2019 elections, winning 25.6% of the vote, although this was down from 29.4% four years earlier.

Party president Marco Chiesa warned at a delegate conference on Saturday that “a new left turn like in 2019” would mean the end of Switzerland’s prosperity, freedom and independence. Several speakers called for a reduction in immigration, which the People’s Party blamed for increasing crime, weighing on social spending, worsening the energy shortage and pushing up health premiums.

‘More realism’

The centre-right Radical-Liberal Party, which gained 15.1% of the vote in 2019, wants to become the second-largest party in Switzerland, overtaking the left-wing Social Democratic Party (16.8%).

“Switzerland needs urgent liberal reforms,” said party president Thierry Burkart at the delegates’ meeting.

The party said it would fight for an open and innovative economy, less state intervention, old age provision and energy security and supply. On energy, Burkart called for “more realism and less dreaming”. “It’s not possible to withdraw from nuclear power and meet climate targets at the same time,” he said.

Climate challenge

The centrist Liberal Green Party, which held a virtual delegates’ conference on Saturday, wants to break the 10% barrier in the next elections. Three years ago it won 7.8% of the vote. The party wants to expand its parliamentary group in the House of Representatives (16 seats) and return to the Senate.

It said it wants to “take the helm, get on with the job and get Switzerland out of the deadlock, so that action is the order of the day in future”. Its aim is to obtain Green Liberal representation in government, “because it is precisely there that new milestones must be set in order to shape the Switzerland of tomorrow”.

The left-wing Green Party also announced its ambitions for the executive. “We’re ready” for government, party president Balthasar Glättli told party members. “We’re ready to provide solutions for the future, to build bridges, to reach out to our political opponents and work out compromises,” he said.

The Greens want to become the third political force in the country. In 2019 they became the fourth-largest party in the House of Representatives with 13.2% of the vote.

“We need more Greens in parliament and in government to tackle the greatest challenge of our time: the climate crisis,” Glättli said. Since the previous elections the Greens are the party that has made the most progress in the cantons. They have won 52 more seats in cantonal parliaments and now sit on the executives of eight cantons (with nine ministers).