Party over? Just eight months on from its stunning success in the national elections, is the Swiss People's Party really on the brink of an equally spectacular collapse?
| Auteur | Ledsom, Mark |
| Fonction | POLITICS |
The right-wing Swiss People's Party was in a triumphant mood last October after securing a record 29 per cent of the popular vote with a populist election platform catering to public fears over rising immigration, surging youth crime and the alleged decline of traditional Swiss values.
But the party's dramatic development was arrested in June by the sudden emergence of deep internal rifts--or at least that was the way things were portrayed by the coverage in most of the country's newspapers.
No, no and no ...
Two separate but seemingly related events on the same day caused the media to trumpet the party's downfall or, at the very least, its steady disintegration. The day in question was June 1, which began with Swiss citizens comfortably rejecting three popular votes supported by the party and ended with the party itself rejecting one of its own regional branches at the end of a long-simmering row involving the alleged treachery of new justice minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf.
In truth, two of the three popular votes held in June were only half-heartedly supported by the party. One called on the government to limit its pronouncements in the run up to future votes and was never expected to succeed. The second involved a minor tweak to the country's health insurance system and was also backed by the government--making its failure more than just a defeat for the People's Party.
But it was the third vote on allowing Swiss communities to reintroduce the controversial practice of ruling on citizenship applications in secret ballots that attracted most media attention. The comfortable rejection of the popular initiative by 64 per cent of voters was swiftly interpreted as a major blow for a party that has frequently sought to make political headway from the country's attitude to its immigrant population.
"The vote on citizenship applications was clearly the main one for us and of course we are disappointed that we lost it," People's Party spokesman Alain Hauert told Swiss News.
"We regret the outcome because for us it marks another step towards a state run by judges by taking away from the people's democratic right to choose who gets Swiss citizenship without having their decisions open to judicial appeals.
"Of course we now have to accept the result but the other parties must know that they take full responsibility for the consequences which are likely to include a sharp rise in the number of Swiss passports handed out. They will also have to take...
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