Surprises in Switzerland’s Election: A Green Surge, More Women, and Decline for Populist SVP

By Adrian Favero (PiAP Switzerland focused Research Fellow) – this post originally appeared on EA Worldview

On October 20, about 5.3 million eligible voters in Switzerland were asked to elect the new Parliament. About 45.1% cast ballots, a turnout slightly lower than in previous years.

As several forecasts predicted, the major parties lost votes and the two green parties – the Greens and the Green Liberals – gained seats. However, some results were rather surprising, as the new distribution in the National Council, the Lower House of the Swiss Parliament, testifies.

Greens: Better Than Expected

As predicted, almost all over the country, more people voted for green parties than in 2015. But the anticipated green wave turned out to be a green tsunami.

The Greens (GPS) almost doubled their votes, surging by 6.1% to a 13.2% share, and gaining 17 seats in the National Council. This was an unprecedented surge in representation, topping the record of 15 additional seats, set by the right-wing populist party Swiss People’s Party (SVP) in 1999. The Green Liberal Party (GLP) also exceeded expected results, with a gain of 3.2% and nine more seats.

The current debate on climate change and the green parties’ “competence issue ownership” — as noted in my pre-election summary — motivated many citizens in the casting of their votes. The extent to which the so-called “Greta effect” will permanently change the party landscape remains to be seen, but it inevitably leads to discussion of a potential re-configuration of seats in the government.

But political shifts move slowly in Switzerland. Although the Greens have replaced the Christian Democrats (CVP) as the fourth biggest party, they may not be able to claim representation in the Federal Council for two reasons.

First, the Greens are not as well represented in the Council of States, the upper chamber, as they are in the National Council. Second, parties are usually expected to consolidate their election results, and these results are often reflected in the government only several years (or even decades) after electoral gains in the Parliament.

More Women

The National Council now has 84 women, 42% of the chamber. Switzerland is now second in Europe, behind Sweden, in women’s representation in the legislature.

In previous elections, it was usually parties on the left that fed the increase in women’s representation; however, in 2019, the share rose on both right and left. The proportion of women legislators in the Radical-Liberal Party (FDP) rose from 21.2% to 35.7%. The share in the SVP increased from 16.9% to 24.5%.

Losses for SVP and Social Democrats

The SVP suffered the greatest decline of all major parties. Never before has a party lost 12 seats, amid a fall in vote share by 3.8% for the populist party.

However, the SVP remains the strongest power in the National Council. And the second-placed Social Democrats (SP) suffered its worst result since the introduction of proportional representation in 1919. A post-election survey found many citizens who traditionally voted for the SP switched to one of the green parties.

What Now?

With the shifting party landscape, new co-operation between the Greens, the CVP, and the SP will be likely, aligning against an SVP which is still the largest party in Parliament.

However, it remains to be seen how this new constellation deals with unfinished issues such as health insurance costs and the future relations with the European Union.

It is too early for clear predictions — and we still await the second-round results in the Council of States, the upper Parliamentary chamber.

Italian Right’s Victory in Central Region Challenges Coalition Government

By Daniele Albertazzi (PiAP Principal Investigator) and Mattia Zulianello (PiAP Italy focused Research Fellow) – first published by European Politics and Policy Blog at the London School of Economics.


The Italian right scored a stunning victory in the regional election in Umbria in central Italy on Sunday, casting doubt on how long Italy’s current government — backed by the left and the Five Star Movement (M5S) — can survive.

Umbria’s new Governor is Donatella Tesei, a League (Lega) Party senator who also enjoyed the backing of Forza Italia and Brothers of Italy. With this support, she took 57.5% of the vote, compared with Vincenzo Bianconi’s 37.5%.

Umbria had been governed by left wingers since the institution of regional administrations about 50 years ago, but the writing for the ruling centre-left Democratic Party (PD) has been on the wall. The League gained an impressive 38.2% of the Umbrian vote in the 2019 European elections, and the PD’s reputation took a hit when the previous governor had to quit due to a scandal. However, what was unexpected was the scale of the PD’s defeat, particularly since it had reached an agreement with the populist M5S that they would both throw their weight behind Bianconi’s candidature for the governorship.

Winners and Losers

An early sign of the shift was the 9% increase in turnout to 64.4%, compared with that of the regional elections of 2015. It is yet another confirmation that, when people believe they can bring about change, they participate in larger numbers. The right swapped places with the PD/M5S alliance, securing almost exactly the same percentage of votes that its opponents had gained in the previous regional election.

The League, which had become the largest party at the 2018 general election, confirmed its status by gaining roughly the same percentage of votes it secured in the 2019 EU ballot: 37% on Sunday versus 38.2% in the spring. Brothers of Italy, a party many commentators regard as extreme right, also had a very good night: it doubled its support from 2018, with former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia limping home on 5.5% of the vote — a nightmare for what had once been the dominant component of the right-wing coalition.

If Berlusconi may not have felt like cracking open the prosecco, the right’s opponents had even less reason to celebrate. This was particularly true of the M5S, as it clinched a mere 7.4% of the vote vs. the 27.5% it achieved in 2018. At 22.3%, the PD’s vote share was not dissimilar to what it had gained in the general election last year and the EU elections this year, but the problems for the party are the loss of the governorship and the scale of Lega leader Matteo Salvini’s triumph.

The Right Won: So What Now?

The success of the right is undeniable, but the reasons why this should matter beyond the borders of Umbria may not be immediately apparent, given that only 700,000 people were entitled to vote in this election.

Instead, the composition of the losing coalition is the issue here, insofar as it closely mirrors the one governing the country.

Salvini’s League decided 2 1/2 months ago to walk out of the government it had formed with the M5S, but the party failed to trigger a general election. Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte managed to stay on, supported by the PD and M5S.

Now that these two parties have resoundingly failed to pass their first electoral test of their coalition, Salvini will agitate to get the election that eluded him in the summer claiming that the government does not enjoy the support of Italians. If a defeat in Umbria sets in motion a series of similar defeats for the PD and M5S across Italy, an election may well become inevitable. Specifically, if the right wins the election coming up in January in the much larger Emilia-Romagna region – another former stronghold of the left, but one that has not been plagued by scandals – then the momentum could become unstoppable for a fresh national ballot next spring.

The scale of the M5S’s defeat indicates that its decision to integrate into the political system and abandon its isolationist stategy has largely been a failure. Unlike many of its populist counterparts, M5S has lost its credibility as it has started taking on governing responsibilities. Faced by a rapidly weakening party, the most “League-friendly” M5S deputies and senators may have a strong incentive to jump ship and join the League’s group in Parliament, possibly leading to Conte losing his majority. Beyond this swapping of t-shirts — hardly unusual in Italy — there are also those within the M5S who see an early election as an opportunity to get rid of “the old guard”, starting with their high-profile leader and current Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio. They would be happy to regroup in opposition, if the prize were a fundamental shake-up of the party.

As for the left, unity is obviously not their forte. The PD recently suffered yet another split when former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi left to create a personal, centrist party. It is impossible to guess for how long Renzi will want to be seen as being on the side of a “coalition of losers” by providing support to Prime Minister Conte, if more defeats are ahead. Renzi may view an early election as the lesser of two evils, to establish his party as the novelty of the contest and with an eye to eroding the PD’s support. Tt was not lost on anyone that Renzi avoided turning up during the last days of the campaign in Umbria, as rumors about the growth of the right were intensifying.

The League, once a regional actor concentrated in the north of the peninsula, is consolidating its status as a nationwide party. Salvini will continue to lead the right for the foreseeable future. Opposing him will be two parties that at present look directionless.

If the right can repeat its Umbrian feat in forthcoming regional elections – a much harder task in Emilia-Romagna – then Sunday’s vote may come to be seen as the beginning of the end for the second Conte premiership – and possibly for the Five Star Movement as we know it.

Populist Parties as “The New Normal”: An Interview with Mattia Zulianello

Mattia Zulianello (PiAP’s Italy focused Research Fellows) talks with Political Observer about populist parties and how they integrate into the systems of their respective countries, even as they present themselves as anti-elitist?


PO: In your study, you calculate that in Europe 2/3rds of contemporary populist parties are integrated in their political systems, while only 1/3rd are relegated to the margins. Is it possible to claim that populist parties are the “new normal”? And how can you explain that populism relies on anti-elitist concepts while being part of the political system?

MZ: To some extent, yes: populist parties are the “new normal”.

In many countries, populist parties are required to give life to governmental majorities. Once favorable political conditions exist, a process of legitimation between the populists and the major non-populist actor(s) can replace years of reciprocal hostility.

This can occur very rapidly. In some countries the populists really dominate the electoral arena, in particular in Italy and Hungary. In others, despite their limited electoral strength – they still dominate the media arena.

So the increasing integration of populist parties into national political systems is part of a broader process of the normalization and legitimation of populism by more “conventional” partisan actors, such as centre-right and centre-left parties, but also in the media and public debate.

This is particularly evident in the case of populist radical right parties, given the unprecedented importance of nativism in the public debate; in the agendas of more traditional competitors; and even at the European Union level, as shown by the recent controversies over the new portfolio for “protecting our European way of life”.

However, this does not mean that the normalization and legitimation of populism is limited to the right side of the political spectrum. Albeit less evident in comparison with those mobilizing immigration and cultural issues, populist parties of other varieties now set the public agenda in many countries.

This is due to two major reasons. First, in most cases perception is more important than reality, such as immigration numbers vs. perception of immigration or objective economic indicators vs .the feeling of relative deprivation). Second, the moralistic rather than programmatic emphasis of populism fits well with the insatiable demand for spectacle by journalists in an age of “hybrid media systems“.

Over-representation in the media is precisely what should be avoided, and the strategy of over-demonization does not work either: populists — whether of the right, left, or valence variety — seek media attention, and the media, in most cases, give them exactly what they want. In many cases this is also true of us as political scientists: we ascribe a disproportionate importance to marginal actors and events.

PO: How does populism rely on anti-elitist concepts while being part of the political system?

MZ: Anti-elitism, or an anti-establishment attitude, is a key part of the identity and profile of a populist party. If a populist party ceases to be anti-elitist, it also ceases to be populist.

The key point is how the populists can remain credible in their anti-elitism despite integration. Despite the ongoing parroting of the frames and style of populists in some policy areas by more conventional parties, voters usually prefer the original rather than the copy.

Simply put, anti-elitism needs to be credibly articulated. This is easier when populist parties effectively qualify as anti-system parties and are at the margins. It is less easy when they become “coalitionable”, and it becomes much more complex when they hold national office. However, even though in many cases the policy achievements of populist parties in office are limited, they can remain credible in the electoral market if they preserve organizational cohesion and manage to deliver the image of being “proactive” actors, irrespective of the actual outcomes.

This can be achieved by adopting a narrative such as “We (really) tried to do y, but for x reasons (independent of our control) it was not possible.” This often takes the form of blame-shifting directed against “the elites”, “the deep state”, or “strong powers”.

Paradoxically, this can contribute to the sustainability of anti-elitism, despite the visible integration of populist parties into national political systems. It is shown by the recent strategy adopted by Matteo Salvini following the failed attempt by the Lega to force new elections in Italy, but also by Alexis Tsipras following his U-turn after the 2015 Greek bailout referendum.

It must be emphasized that this strategy works only if the party manages to contain internal conflict and articulate a consistent and clear message to the voters. The latter has been successfully achieved by various populist parties across Europe; however, it is difficult, as shown by the Austrian FPÖ in 2002 or the Greek Orthodox Rally in 2012.

These maneuvers require strategic and leadership skills, but populist parties are increasingly able to cope with the pressures both of cooperation with non-populist parties and of participation in government.

PO: Let’s have a closer look at the 66 parties you identify as populist. Where are they positioned on the left-right political spectrum? And which are those parties that you call “valence populism”?

MZ: Among the 66 parties I analysed in my article, the vast majority can be located on the right-side of the political spectrum (68.2%).

Among this broad category, the most populated sub-group is represented by populist radical right parties (31), followed by national-conservative populists (10), and a few neo-liberal populists (4).

Only 16.7% of contemporary populist parties are found on the left portion of the political spectrum. A tiny majority of them (6) qualify as typical “social populists”, while the others (5) combine socialism with some form of nationalism.

Finally, for the remaining populist actors (15.1%), I introduce the term of “valence populist parties”, building upon the insights of Kenneth Roberts. Such parties are commonly found in Central and Eastern Europe, with prominent examples including GERB in Bulgaria, ANO 2011 in the Czech Republic, and the List of Marjan Šarec in Slovenia.

Perhaps the best example is the Five Star Movement (M5S) in Italy. M5S cannot be located in positional terms across the left-right political space, and various studies have outlined its ideological flexibility and eclecticism. The same applies to many parties in Central and Eastern Europe, which, like M5S, over-emphasize non-positional issues such as competence, performance, and anti-corruption.

These features are almost identical to those evoked by the existing definition of a “centrist populist party”, but this is misleading because valence populists lack a clear positioning. Sure, they are not left nor right, but they cannot be located in the “center” either.

Valence populists may well adopt specific positions. However, in contrast to an unadulterated (or pure) version of populism, positions adopted by parties such as the M5S are flexible, free-floating, often inconsistent, and very much influenced by the structure of political opportunity. M5S’s recent and prompt shift from a government coalition with the populist radical right Lega to one with the center-left Democratic Party provides clear evidence for these features.

PO: When speaking of populism, there is much confusion around terms and definitions. Can you tell us what features distinguish populist parties vis-à-vis anti-establishment, challenger, and outsider parties?

MZ: Well, tons of ink could be spent in reply to this question. To avoid this, I will try to focus on the most important differences, while inviting the reader to see my article for further details.

First, it is very important to underline that none of the three terms are synonyms, even though they are often treated as such. I realized the extreme degree of confusion characterizing the conceptual debate on “anti” during my PhD thesis, which was published as a book by Routledge this year.

Although there are different conceptualizations of the terms “challenger’ and ‘outsider” parties, the most common approaches refer to a specific location of a party in the party system: in the case of the former, the absence of governmental experience; in the latter, the exclusion from the coalition game.

As I highlight in my article, populist parties are not necessarily challengers nor outsiders. On the contrary, around 40% of contemporary populist parties have government experience — and this percentage is rising) — while about 2/3rs are variously integrated in visible cooperative interactions in the political system. This includes, but is not limited to, the ability and willingness to use coalition potential, participation in pre-electoral coalitions, or full participation in national office with the major parties in the system.

Finally, “anti-establishment” depends on how we define the term. If we use it to indicate, inter alia, the unwillingness of a party to cooperate with the “mainstream”, then populist parties are not necessarily anti-establishment; only a minority would qualify as such. However, if we avoid assuming specific behavioral tendencies and use the term to refer only to the ideology of a given party — which is more appropriate, in my view — then populist parties are always anti-establishment in ideational terms, given their emphasis on anti-elitism.

The point is that this ideational orientation is increasingly disjointed from the role of a populist actor in the party system. In other words, for many populist parties, the anti-establishment ideology is not accompanied by an anti-establishment (or uncompromising) behavior.

PO: To go beyond the existing problems with the anti-establishment characteristics of populist parties, you propose a new classification: non-integrated, negatively integrated, and positively integrated populist parties. Which kind of parties belong to the three groups? Why is this classification more precise than previous ones?

MZ: My new classification was inspired precisely by the increasing integration of various types of political parties without the concomitant occurrence of substantial ideological moderation, something that was somehow overlooked in the classical works of Giovanni Sartori.

This led me to the development of a revisited concept of anti-system party. This later served as the foundation for the comprehensive empirical analyses of the challenges faced by such parties that I carried out in my book.

Subsequently, I realized that a fruitful field of application was the comprehensive analysis of the different interaction streams characterizing contemporary populist parties, especially in the light of the terminological and conceptual confusion in the academic debate.

Following Sartori’s classical conception, populist parties — at least in fully liberal-democratic contexts — would qualify by definition as anti-system, given his focus on party propaganda. However, empirical reality suggests that there are huge differences among populist parties in terms of the actual role played in their own national contexts.

Following my conceptualization, I consider anti-system only the populist parties that, in addition to questioning crucial elements of the status quo — most notably the liberal-representative elements of the political regime — are also at the margins of the party system. These are “non-integrated” populist parties, which do not simply challenge the system in ideational terms but also adopt an uncompromising, antagonistic posture vis-à-vis “the system parties”. These represent a systemic constraint, especially in view of a possible extension of the area of government, such as Human Shield in Croatia and the Sweden Democrats.

However, only a minority of contemporary European populist parties are actually anti-system in my conceptualization. The vast majority of them are integrated into the national political systems, meaning that they are involved in important and very visible cooperative interactions at the systemic level, which indicate that they have crossed the threshold of legitimation.

But the integration of populist parties can be either “negative” or “positive”. In fully-fledged liberal democracies, the integration of populist parties is invariably of the “negative” type because, despite their involvement in cooperative interactions, they remain ideologically opposed to one or more key features of the status quo. Commonly, this is the political regime, but in some cases this also encompasses the configuration of the political community or the (capitalist) economic system. Notable examples of negatively integrated populist parties are the Five Star Movement and the Lega in Italy, Podemos in Spain, and the Swiss People’s Party.

On the other hand, in flawed democracies or non-democracies, the integration of populist parties well be of the “positive” type. Given the illiberal nature of such regimes, their ideational profile may be in a symbiotic relationship with the status quo, its values, and practices, as shown in particular by the case of Fidesz in Hungary.

Hence, the utility of my classification is the capacity of distinguishing the very different roles played by populist parties in contemporary party systems, rather than forcing this heterogeneity into over-simplistic assumptions that in the end unrelated to the empirical reality.

For instance, the Lega is a paradigmatic case of a negatively-integrated populist party. However, even though it is the oldest parliamentary party in Italy and has a long record of participation in national governments, it is still considered by some scholars as a “challenger” or “outsider” party…

PO: Talking of positively-integrated populist parties, you write that “in hybrid or fully authoritarian contexts, populist parties may well be ‘positively’ integrated into the system, meaning that they share its underlying values, as shown by the cases of Hungary, Russia and Serbia”. What are the implications of this finding for the future of liberal democracy in Europe, in particular concerning popular sovereignty and pluralism?

MZ: This finding is simultaneously intriguing and disheartening. Whereas the authoritarian nature of the Russian regime is not the consequence of populism, in the cases of Hungary and Serbia the process of de-democratization was actively pursued and achieved by the ruling populist parties: Fidesz and the Serbian Progressive Party, respectively.

As I argue in the article, “these parties changed the sources of legitimation upon which the political regime itself is built”. Clearly, this was decisively favored by the recent democratization of both the countries, but in the case of Hungary this occurred in an European Union member state. This what I find particularly disturbing.

Commenting on the outcome of the 2019 European Parliament elections, Martin Selmayr, then Secretary-General of the European Commission, declared that the “populist wave…was contained”. However, leaving aside that the de-democratization of Hungary would not have been possible without the (in)actions of the European People’s Party, this statement well summarizes the limited vision of non-populist parties and politicians: their focus is placed on short-term electoral. Meanwhile, populism has already profoundly changed the political debate in the EU, and even transformed a country located in the very heart of the European Union into a “(competitive) authoritarian regime”.

 

A Beginner’s Guide to Switzerland’s Elections

by Adrian Favero (PiAP Switzerland focused Research Fellow)

This article originally appeared on EA Worldview

The Swiss federal elections are set to take place on October 20. Voters will choose the 200 members of the National Council, the lower chamber of the Swiss Parliament, as well as 45 of 46 members of the Council of States, the upper chamber. MPs will serve from 2019 to 2023.

About 2/3rd of people residing in Switzerland are eligible to vote. Turnout is about 50%.

Political Background

Swiss direct democracy offers citizens extensive opportunities to exert political influence beyond the Parliamentary institutions. Shifts in election results are relatively moderate and had no consequences for government composition between 1959 and 2003.

However, boosted by becoming the strongest party after the federal election in 2003, the right-wing populist Swiss People’s Party (SVP) demanded a reconfiguration of the Federal Council and a second seat, at the expense of the substantially weakened Christian Democratic People’s Party (CVP). This changed the “magic formula”, the distribution of seats in the government assigned to the biggest parties.

Over the last 40 years, the SVP’s gains have been at the expense of the two centrist parties, the Radical-Liberal Party (FDP) and the CVP. The SVP almost doubled its voter share between 1995 and 2015, from 14.9% to 29.4%.

The party’s electoral achievements are grounded in an increasing investment of material and human resources and an aggressive and populist transformation orchestrated by Zurich billionaire Christoph Blocher. There is also some polarization within the Swiss system, with parties on the side of the political spectrum, the Greens and the Socialists, gaining some votes.

Graph showing trends in electoral support for the major Swiss political parties over the last 50 years

Source: Federal Statistical Office

Competence Issues and the 2019 Election

Multiple surveys show the central political issues for the Swiss population are pension plans, unemployment, the rising cost of health insurance, climate change, immigration, and the relationship with the EU. Some of these concerns have been prevalent over a long period of time, such as pensions, health insurance, and unemployment. The salience of other issues, such as immigration, climate change, and economic uncertainty, depend on the current political debate.

In 2015, the SVP benefited from the mobilization of voters concerned of the large numbers of refugees, while the FDP was recognized as the party that best deals with economic uncertainties. This “competence issue ownership” gave each a boost, with voters assessing how well and how much a party would deal with a salient problem.

The emphasis on the role of issues is important for the Swiss 2019 elections. Current topics may play a role in shaping voters’ choice. Michael Hermann from the Sotomo Research Institute argues that the discussion around environmental protection and climate change may have a decisive impact on voters’ electoral choice, and forecasts seem to confirm this argument.

The SVP is expected to lose electoral support even if it remains the strongest party in Parliament. Its core topics of migration and the relationship with the European Union lost prominence, as ascending issues favor other parties’ ownership of competence. The Greens and the Green-Liberals are expected to gain considerably.

Status of major party support according to SRG Wahlbarometer 2019 going into the 2019 Swiss Federal Election versus their standing in 2015

SRG Wahlbarometer 2019

Of the other main parties, the Socialists are predicted to defend second place. The FDP and CVP are expected to lose support.

However, these numbers hardly constitute landslide gains and losses, and the expected results are only for the National Council. Due to cantonal strongholds and person-focused votes, the CVP and FDP are likely to remain the largest parties in the Council of States.