Election of the Day 2: Switzerland

Argentina isn’t the only country with an election today that is likely to see the government shift to the right, although that prospect in Switzerland is considerably less alarming. Switzerland held legislative elections today, and results will soon start trickling in. (I didn’t realize the election ended at noon (which is ridiculous), or I would have written something up yesterday.) Polling averages had the right-wing Switzerland People’s Party at 28% (up from 25.6%) and early result projections are putting them closer to 29%. These gains appear to be coming at the expense of the Green party, who saw their best result ever (over 13%, 28/200 seats) in the 2019 election, and are returning to something closer to their typical level of support. Other parties are projected to be roughly holding steady, gaining or losing a seat or two. This may not seem like a huge swing, but by Swiss standards, given their long history stability of parliamentary results, it’s substantial. Turnout, as is typical in Switzerland, is quite low, although slightly up from 2019 (47%, up from 45%). Swiss elections are complicated, as different Cantons use different electoral systems, with the larger ones use some form of PR, while smaller ones use first past the post–a necessity for smaller Cantons only allotted 1 seat. (The Swiss public broadcaster offers a handy “Swiss Parliament for dummies” guide here.)

The next projection, based on early returns, is expected to be released in just over an hour (8:00 PM Swiss time), which will give a greater sense of the likely final result. The People’s Party has long been disadvantaged in Switzerland’s upper house, the Council of States, which approaches US Senate levels of malapportionment: 20 Cantons get 2 seats, the 6 half-Cantons get 1. The population ratio between the largest and smallest full Canton (Zurich and Uri) isn’t quite California:Wyoming, but it’s close. The People’s Party has, interestingly, done quite poorly in the Council of States despite being the largest party nationally in recent elections, so unless that dynamic changes considerably it seems unlikely there will be any kind of substantial change in Swiss governance as the result of this election, even with the increase in seats for People’s Party in parliament.