All the parties are preparing for the big campaign in 2011 (parliament + federal council). I am reading what every party is saying, and one conclusion I draw so far is that right-wing parties try to mimic SVP:

- the PDC/CVP puts the "christian" identity of switzerland forward and try to cash on the fact that if switzerland is wealthy today it's thanks to PDC. Quite a conservative approach focusing on the past and not the future.

- the PLR/FDP or liberals are starting an anti-immigrants message. The initiative tries to ride the wave of UDC/SVP. If you look closer you come out with the feeling that FDP thinks that foreigners are bad unless they bring an economical benefit. There is a strong opposition to this trend within PLR.

The big loosers so far are the Socialist and Green, they seem to be lost on how to position themselves. I fear for them that they will reach a much lower score than in previous elections. The SVP is setting the tone of this campaign. Voters will choose between the genuine and the copycats

Quite a challenging but interesting year.

The SVP will come up with between 25% and 31%. The interesting question however is what the results of the BDP will be, the small party of former SVP dissidents. On the SP side, it is obvious that the party leaders Levrat and Wermuth are positioning their party far more to the left than in the past 40 years. They indeed may lose votes, but Mr Wermuth says that to show people an alternative is better than just to try to be more "bourgeois" than the Bourgeois. It will be interesting to see the real results.

No, the voters will not chose between "genuine" and copycats, but between the CVP centrists, the FDP right-of-centre liberals and the heavy right-wingers of the SVP. What is gradually copied in Switzerland in fact are the methods of parties in countries like the USA, France and Germany. The "genuine" is not participating in Switzerland, as the CDU/CSU is in Germany, and it is them, plus the two parties of the USA which were copied by the SVP. The SVP proved that a copycat can be successful, and that a more aggressive style than what used to be the rule in Switzerland can bring results.

Back to the CVP. "Christian" in case of the CVP is Roman-Catholic, and Roman-Catholic Christiandom has been a central part of the identity of that party, already in the days when the party worked under the name of the KKP (Katholisch-Konservative Partei = Catholic-Conservative Party), so that this in their case is not new but enshrined in their basic party-lines. A kind of partner in various parliaments (not only the Federal ones) is the EVP (Evangelische Volks-Partei), the religious party for Protestants. As most Protestants do not like to see religion in politics the EVP always had some problems to succeed.

That you mention something of the FDP without providing a useful link-up is regrettable. The FDP, and that is far more interesting, has reduced the role of party-chief Fulio Pelli to the one of a co-ordinating disponent, and will put more emphasis on the two FDP members of the Federal government, Mr Didier Burkhalter and Mr Schneider-Ammann, who both have got quite some popularity within a short time.

You mentioned the "Greens", but what did you really mean ? The Greens (Grüne Partei = Green Party >> leftist) or the GLP (Grün-Liberale Partei = Green Liberal Party >> centrist, right-of-centre rather) ?? The GP of course is losing "Greens" who are right-of-centre to the GLP. Both together possibly will have far more seats than the Greens ever had in the past. I would not underestimate this development

That's because they are mindless, and suck big time.

I have, on occasion, voted in their favor, but it is VERY rare.

Tom

- yes Green-leftist. I think the Green-liberal will make a good score for a new party especially in romandie

- FDP: i put 2 links regarding the ideas about immigration/asylum to be discussed during the next party meeting.

alright, but ideas to be discussed at party-meetings are just ideas to be discussed but neither party programs nor referenda. The "foreigners issue" is not new, and started in the 1960ies, when a Mr Schwarzenbach started the "Schwarzenbach-Inititative", when the SVP, then still the BGB (Bürger-Gewerbe-Bauern), was still just right of centre. This was long before Mr Blocher took over the party and moved the whole party to the right, introduced US methods into political campaigns and increased the share of his party from around 20% to almost 30%. No, the SVP is NOT calling the tunes, but heavily influencing the STYLE. The SVP in fact is preparing some other initiatives up for voting day in 2012 but likely to get headlines already this year.

And here we get back to the SP. While you mention the possible disaster they may face, the habitual winner of initiatives is likely to launch a few new initiatives during this year, not being voted about this year but catching headlines.

All in all, I take all polls done now with some reservations, as it far too early to take any conclusions.

The party really threatened is not the SP but the CVP. If the CVP moves too much back into conservative religious doctrines and notions it may lose voters on the left to the SP, if it moves too much to the left, it may lose votes to the FDP and the SVP. Mrs Leuthard, the CVP person in the Federal government, is clearly leftist by CVP standards .... and knows that HER electoral basis is NOT so heavily religious. So that I expect them to use the "Christian" approach in conservative mountain valleys but not in "mildly Catholic" aereas.

Well FDP decided to ride the battle of the "Ausländer" to catch more votes for 2011 elections. It's really sad.

You should read the text to the bottom. To keep the number of immigrating non-EU foreigners under control or even reduce it in fact is part of the Bilateral Agreements. But, as Mr Scheider-Ammann clarified, in general, the "contingents" in place in reality were practically never met. And while of course, there was after the implementation of the "Personenfreizügigkeit" an increased immigration out of the EU countries, but this will now get back to normal. There is no "battle of the Ausländer" done by the FDP, but the FDP will make immigration and assimilation etc topics of the election-campaigns. Important and good is the unconditional support for the "Personenfreizügigkeit" by Messrs Schneider-Ammann and Burkhalter.

On the Socialist side, the the president of the Swiss Trades-Unions-Congress (Schweizerischer Gewerkschafts-Bund), Mr Paul Rechsteiner, already has placed the fight against "wages-dumping" and in favour of equal wages for equal work high up into the socialist agenda. The SP also will make assimilation/integration important topics in their election campaign.

Back to the beginning. Schneider-Ammann made it clear that Switzerland does need immigrants with a good education, but no longer needs badly educated unskilled workers. The situation is very similar in fact to the one in Germany. In both countries, the "baby-boomers" of the birthyears 1946-1960 have started to get into retirement and will continue to do so until 2025, and the younger generation very simply is not enough people to replace the "outgoing" one. "Metal-bashing" has already been outsourced in the past, but more "special fields" have to be kept up right here, and that is simply only possible if no longer existing personnel is "imported".

Well, why would one vote for all these imposters when you have the real thing (SVP) to vote for. Frankly, I wouldn't be thinking seriously about retiring outside the US if we had a party like the SVP to vote for here. Our two wings of the same party represent Bolshevism and Crony Capitalism/Mercantilism respectively. They are both into the unending war thing that Trotsky preached.

...very deep political analysis!

Environmental and social issues...? Nonsense!!!

wow....

Bitch about the polarized state of American politics and then contribute to same....it doesn't get much better than that.

I always assumed that the SVP was based on the Monster Raving Looney party in the UK as most of their policies seem to make about as much sense. Honestly, it is quite sad that nearly the third of the country can vote for such a party. At least Basel voted using reasonably yesterday.

As for US politics why are there no centrist parties ? Both the democrats and the republican seem to fight over right wing policies. I suppose the problems because the Democrats are not a true left wing/centrist party it forces the republicans to become more and more dogmatic right wingers. Not a healthy situation for the world's largest economy

All the best
Martin

There were communities in my canton that voted up to 92% against the gun initiative. There's a huge wave of patriotism and fear of the unknown happening right now. George W. Bush would be proud.

Respect! But which country would you move too. I mean, if the SVP were popular here, foreigners would be a lot worse off, maybe it'd make your retirement a bit more interesting.

...sir, I hope the smiley ment that you are joking...

The SVP is NOT the real thing :
- it is NOT the party who was first with that style (CDU-CSU)
- it is NOT economy-liberal right of centre (FDP) but far-right
- it is NOT centrist-social-catholic
- it is NOT moderately rightist (BDP)

in short, the SVP is THE imposter and is NOT the "real thing" but in fact rather unreal and surreal
-
while it of course will get, as mentioned above its 25-to-30 %