Amid nasty anti-immigration attacks, the Swiss People’s Party rises.




http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/n...nday-elections

Here's another spin on that story:
http://www.thelocal.ch/1324/20110928/
Here's another story concerning expats. Switzerland isn't the only country concerned about the immigrant situation:
http://arabnews.com/saudiarabia/article521256.ece
Britain is also jumping on the bandwagon:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...grant-policie/ -The comments here are quite interesting as well

The SVP is surely not extreme-right.

They are social conservatives but economic liberals, totally against a strong nationalistic welfare state (typical far right ideology).

They may use controversial populistic propaganda to gain attention, but finally accept the democratic process and compromise. (which far rights don't)

See them as Reagan-Republicans back in the days.

I'm not sure whether it is due to a lack of understanding of Reagan conservatism or the SVP, but this statement is factually incorrect. Pat Robertson-Republicans, maybe to a degree, but not Reagan.

I'll have to second that as, even though I'm no Republican (well, to be honest, I'm not sure what I am anymore but not terribly conservative), Reagan was not one of these kooky right-winger tea party types. He was the old skool 'make money, make war' kind of guy and would have found a way to make immigration profitable with lower taxes rather than run them off. Of course, Reagan did also make it possible for companies to start off-shoring labor....

Also there's little point in trying to compare political parties between the EU and the US as even the 'conservative' parties here don't really have a lot in common with US conservatives. The amount of government even in Switzerland would give the average Repub apoplexy in the US.

Because there were so many candidates to choose from, I decided to make it easy on myself: CVP and SP all the way.

Actually, the early indications are that things are not going so well for the SVP. Blocher is in 3rd place in Zurich, meaning he probably won't get elected.

Link in DE for the results:

http://www.entscheidung11.sf.tv/Resultate

Audiostream in DE

Um, no one expected Blocher to get a Ständerat seat for ZH. Everyone is winning and losing seats, the SP aren't looking to pretty at the moment. The BDP and Green Liberals are stronger than I expected, but writing anything mid-results is foolhardy at best, so further comments when all the votes are in.

Seems that way but mid results things can change quite quickly.

Where is this "Global Post " coming from ? I on their WEBsite do not see where they are based. And their "article" is just a compilation of utter rubbish. All opinion polls over the past two month forecast a stagnation for the SVP and not a "rise"

NOT in case of Mr Blocher, but sure in case of Mrs Diener and Dr Gutzwiller who both might still narrowly achieve the needed "absolute" majority.

As I posted elsewhere "Luckily the SVP put up Blocher as their Ständerat candidate in Zürich not Natalie Rickli who might have won; she got around 10% more Nationalrat votes than Blocher."

Charles M. Sennott and Philip S. Balboni founded the company on January 12, 2009 with $8.5 million from private investors. It has 65 correspondents worldwide including former Washington Post journalist Caryle Murphy and Time journalist Matt Beynon Rees

from wikipedia

Let's hope the other 64 do not write such crap

Exactly. If you want extreme-right try the PNOS.

Unfortunately, what some consider 'crap' is a reality in this land. Journalists just reflect what some crappy people do.

Actually Reaganomics and Thatcherism correspond exactly the SVP's ideology of state and economy.

The SVP are not against (cheap) foreign workers at all, but wanna cut their rights to a minimun, use them as scapegoats and kick them out when not needed anymore - sounds very Republican to me.

Finally gotta love those international press-fearmongerers:
The SVP lost 10% of seats in the National Counsil and totally failed in the Counsil of States - so far the facts.

I would call that a miserabel loss and no "historic win" at all - there was also no poll predicting a win, dont know where they got this bullshit from.