[Culturechat] More CH politics

[Vance Roy]

A survey is out today on who the CH electorate want as their Federal 
Councillors. Keep in mind that there are seven positions, each elected 
by the CH parliament for a period of four years. In the past twenty odd 
years, the "magic formula" has almost assured that the ratio did not 
change and elections were often for as long as the person wanted to 
remain.

An occasional retirement before a term ended has resulted in an 
election to a councillor post before scheduled elections. Illness was 
the usual reason, although three times in a little over a hundred 
years, councillors were removed for cause.

That has all changed a bit now. Nobody's post is safe, because the 
"magic formula" is going to be reworked. The present far right party's 
one councillor (SVP) is likely to be joined by a new person also a SVP. 
This will the first time a far right party has had two possible 
positions out of seven. They earned this by getting the most votes in 
this fall's elections (27%). other parties represented in the 
government lost ground or barely hung on while the SVP picked up more 
seats and votes than ever before. This has been a coming trend over 
several years, and even bastions of liberalism in the French Swiss 
areas have seen new establishment of SVP party chapters in their own 
back years.

Here is a list of present councillors and the percentage of the voters 
that believe they should remain. SP is far left, SVP is far right, CVP 
and FDP are centrist parties.

Moritz Leuenberger SP 67%
Samuel Schmid SVP 66%
Micheline Calmy-Rey SP 65 %
Ruth Metzler CVP 59 %
Joseph Deiss CVP 55 %
Pascal Couchpin FDP 37%

Note that two of the most popular councillors are poles apart in 
thought (SP and SVP). There is a sentiment to have women with more than 
a token representation, so Metzler and Calmy-Rey are probably OK. 
Couchpin trails his other incumbent councillors and is beaten by two 
possibles, Steinegger and Beerli. I hear that he is a smart man but 
tends to shake the troops up a bit too much. He is ending his stint as 
President of CH this month.

Now, there are the six incumbents. There is one seat to fill because 
there is a retirement this year who is an FDP. Ordinarily, one would 
expect the "Magic formula" to dictate that another FDP would be added 
by consensus. This year. if that happens, the SVP says they will drop 
out of the coalition and become opposed to the government. You say, 
"they only got 27% of the vote, why worry?" Well, they got more votes 
than anyone else and would probably have a lot of center right folks 
vote for them and with them in the parliament if they are excluded. 
This could get things very sticky.

The survey shows that of the non-councillor members in the race, the 
three most likely are:

Franz Steinegger FDP 50%
Christine Beerli FDP 39%
Christoph Blocher SVP 35%

Blocher wants a councillor position for himself, and his party has won 
that right. If Blocher sees himself as a real impediment to the second 
SVP seat, I think he will not run in favor of a dark horse member of 
the SVP.

10 December will tell the tale. The TV will broadcast live from the 
Federal Parliament building in Bern while the votes go on until seven 
councillors are elected. It is a time of excitement that reminds me of 
a political convention in the USA.

Vance Roy
gigli.saw@dplanet.ch
http://homepage.mac.com/fredch

“Never under estimate the ingenuity of the stupid.”
Anon.