October 23, 2011 is time for some of us to go checking boxes and putting our faith and trust in guys and gals in suits and skirts to represent us in Bern for the next few years.

Will the SVP remain the strongest party in this Alpine land or will the SP get their act together and appear united? The Green Liberals are making steady progress across all voting and age groups and how will the BDP fair in their first ever real national election? Can the FDP make their policies clear and how will all the pro-EU parties feel with the Euro currency reeling at our borders, making Swiss exports more and more expensive?

Background (in the national languages only) is here.

Following the fall vote, parliament members will elect the seven members of the Bundesrat (Federal Council) during early Decemeber 2011 when the winter parliamentary session opens.

If you're not quite sure how Swiss politics works (and it does BTW), check out this site, which is devoid of any political leaning. Don't forget that apart from the Bundesrat members themselves, Swiss parliament members still have regular daytime jobs, also called a "militia system" for both the Nationalrat (Federal Council) with 200 seats and the Ständerat (Council of States or Cantonal Council to make it easier) with 46 seats.

The debate is open, any mentioning of sheep will be frowned upon....

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As always, I'll vote Socialist and Green because it's the only way to care for people and for the environment.
..... and.... it's a good idea to keep a balance.

I checked up with www.smartvote.ch
and got a nice coalition-compilation consisting of
GLP SP FDP EVP
as they check up people who agree with you on issues

That website is good fun. According to them the GLP represents me the most with the first 3 nationalrat candidates coming from them with 61% . I was happy to see the 4 SVP candidates came among the bottom 6 of 70 in AG

Interestingly the SP/JUSO and greens don't do to well with me either. There was only one SP in the top 20 and the first green comes in at 29.

What I'm surprised at is that the CVP do surprisingly well. I would never vote for them due to the connections to religion but they've got 4 candidates in my top 20.

What doesn't surprise me though is how little the politicians represents me. I went through the different cantons and most of the leading ones are in the lower 60% range which means I would be of the same opinion just over half the time which I find pretty weak. I guess I'll have to start my own party

the unionwide compilation shows
GLP 55,5
SP 50,8
GLP 50,7
GLP 49,5
GLP 49,4
FDP 49,3
GLP 48,1
GLP 48,1
GLP 47,9
SP 47,9

A chap I will have on my list definitely (SP) has an agreement
rate of 45,4%

smartvote claims that I should be voting Young Liberals, Green Liberals and a smattering of SVP.

How can I live down the shame? All you need to do is disagree with a couple of staple manifesto subjects and it tends to throw out that party as a whole. For example, I disagree with maintaining Swiss military neutrality in the future and state conscription; smartvote therefore casts the opinion that I'm left oriented, which is a generalization of their facts and untrue to the extreme. I'll still have to read through my copies of Weltwoche to find a balance.

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You know how they assessed your results? The candidates themselves answered the exact same questions.
My field of candidates used to be much more diverse just 2 years or so ago. Now it's dominated by jf (young liberals), GLP (green liberal party), but even then not a single candidate in either Zürich (60.2%) or Lucerne (55%) really represents my opinions well.

Well, I know for sure I will never vote SP or GLP, so that at least narrows my choices. Smartvote is down at the moment.

I didn't know that, thank you for clearing it up because I was as confused as I was befuddled with the results. I thought that the "Young Liberals" were a sub-culture of the FKK and could be seen frisking around naked in remote meadows making love to trendy beats from '68.

When I was a kid in the 50s, there were 2 conservative parties in our area. The 'Radicals' who basically represented the wealthy business people (my dad's side) and the 'Liberals' who represented the 'professions' or 'old money' (my mum's side). Now those 2 parties have recently merged, as they realised they would be stronger together.

Guess my surprise when the youngsters I studied with at Uni in the UK, as a mature student, told me that I had 'radical and liberal ideas'. NO, NO, I said, on the contrary ... So the names of those 2 parties are a bit confusing, as I'd not say they represent either liberal or radical thinking, as I know understand it. They are conservatives with a small 'c'- and definitely not 'right-wing'.

That's what I first thought as well, imagine my surprise when I popped up at a party meeting half-nekkid with a joint in my mouth and a beer in my hand, only to find these people:


They politely informed that they don't take slogans about individual liberties quite as literal as me, so I didn't bother to join.

Seems like I should be voting FDP, CVP or SVP. Seems to be no BDP Nationalrat candidates in Fribourg

Aparrently I should be voting for the Pirates? WTH?

On the top 5 there are 3 pirates, a Green (OMG WTF? NEVER!) and a JF.

But Pirates? What the hell is the Pirate party? >_<

http://www.pirateparty.ch/Party_Platform

Against censorship, against infrastructure monopolies, for privacy, personal liberty, freedom of speech, and the "Liberation of Culture" which basically means you can download all you want for free. A nerd party.

That explains why they were all "System Administrators" and such...

That is just.. awesome... I'm getting my pirate dress out of the closet. How many years do I need to wait to be able to vote?

You can vote the same day you get your Swiss citizenship!

Tom

In short: It means you are into nerdy IT geeks... the types with Pizza stains on the shoulder of the star wars t-shirts they wear at work.

Saying this openly here will fill up your PM inbox in no time...

Some of us nerdy system engineering/administration geeks aren't guys.

My favorite Swiss political party is the Anti-Powerpoint Party.

I know, I am married to a database expert...

(enter primary key joke here)

But back to the questionaire - I for the fun of it looked at my result for Schwyz and Zurich - completely differen parties on top!

Looks like I am GLP and some pirates in ZH, but SP in SZ (not really a surprise there...)... I guess we don't have pirates or tree huggers in Schwyz

And why are the youth organizations of parties listed seperately?