← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Gregz
Thread ID: 11402 | Posts: 3 | Started: 2003-12-08
2003-12-08 13:21 | User Profile
Far-right rise threatens Swiss 'magic formula'
Decades of government consensus jeopardised as victorious anti-immigration party leader delivers ultimatum
Surrounded by snowy hills, the tiny Swiss town of Sempach was once the scene of an epic battle. Back in 1386, a group of Swiss soldiers defeated a larger army of Austrian knights and then dumped their enemies' bodies in the town's icy lake.
Sempach has become the scene of another conflict - this time between Switzerland's far-right People's party (SVP), which gathered in the town last week, and almost everybody else.
Since winning the country's general election in October, the SVP's leader, Christoph Blocher, has been demanding a seat for himself on Switzerland's ruling seven-seat federal council. His party already has one seat in government but, given its electoral success, he believes that it now deserves two.
His anti-immigration party fought the most explicitly foreigner-bashing campaign in Switzerland's history - and won [B]26.6% of the vote[/B]. Switzerland's three other main political parties have traditionally shared power with the SVP. But they do not want to give Mr Blocher his own seat on the federal council.
As a result, the country now finds itself plunged into its biggest political crisis for more than 40 years.
On Wednesday, the 246 members of the country's upper and lower houses of parliament will elect a new ruling council. Nobody quite knows what will happen. The secret ballot has been compared to a penalty shootout - with Mr Blocher's fate uncertain and Switzerland's cosy system of political consensus, dating back to the late 1950s, seemingly about to implode. The country's reputation for dullness appears to be imperilled.
"We're looking at an earthquake," one SVP member said at Sempach, as delegates, surrounded by medieval cantonal flags, tucked into a lunch of beer and bratwurst.
Last night, Mr Blocher told the Guardian that if he failed to win a seat, his party would take the unprecedented step of going into opposition.
Asked whether his party was racist, Mr Blocher, who has been compared to Jörg Haider, the leader of Austria's far right, insisted that he had nothing against people from other lands. "We like foreigners," he said, after delegates - mostly from Switzerland's rustic valleys - had agreed to back his opposition strategy. "But we believe that those who have entered Switzerland illegally should not be here." He added: "When I think of England's prime minister, I think he would agree with me."
Mr Blocher shrugged off comparisons with Mr Haider, and said he was a great admirer of Winston Churchill, whose memoirs he had read. "Churchill believed in freedom," he said. "He never gave up.
"My vision for Switzerland is of a free democratic country that determines its own future and stays outside international organisations such as the European Union and Nato."
He added, however: [I]"The Europeans are our good friends."[/I]
Some observers are less sanguine about Mr Blocher's electoral success and Switzerland's apparent lurch to the right.
[B]Polarisation[/B]
[I]The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees described the SVP's campaign as "atrocious" after it put up election posters of a black face accompanied by the slogan "The Swiss are becoming negroes" and blamed the country's problems on "shameless asylum seekers" and "a brutal Albanian mafia". [/I]
"It was shocking," said one British diplomat based in Berne.
The tactic worked, however. The SVP, once Switzerland's smallest party, is now its largest. Switzerland's two traditional centre-right parties, meanwhile, the Radicals (FDP) and Christian Democrats (CVP), saw their support shrink, while the centre-left Social Democrats came second with 23.3% . The Greens won 7.8%. "If anything, we have seen a polarisation," the diplomat added.
The rise of the SVP in Switzerland echoes the recent success of far-right parties in other European countries, most notably in Austria and Holland, but also in Denmark, Belgium, Germany and even the UK.
Observers say it has much to do with Switzerland's economic woes. The country is still extremely affluent. But unemployment has crept up to 4%. Several leading corporations, including the national airline, Swissair, have gone bankrupt. Even Switzerland's sleepy watch-making industry has been rocked by scandal, with one leading manufacturer recently arrested for making fake Rolexes.
But the SVP's success is also largely attributable to the mercurial 63-year-old Mr Blocher, a veteran politician, who has spent his entire career fighting the Swiss establishment. "He is rhetorically gifted. He can explain complex ideas in a simple way," said Georg Lutz, of Berne University's institute of political science.
Johann Aeschlimann, a leading journalist, commented: "He's the nearest thing we have in Switzerland to an American politician. Economically, he is neo-liberal. He has a lot in common with Mrs Thatcher."
Mr Blocher, the son of a Protestant pastor, is one of the richest men in Switzerland, and owns his own chemicals factory. During the 1980s and 1990s he led campaigns against Swiss membership of both the UN and EU, and was a supporter of apartheid.
He is married, with four children, and lives near Zürich in a lakeside mansion. Friends insist that he is not flashy, and say he prefers to spend his money on works by the Swiss painters Albert Anker and Ferdinand Hodler, which hang in his home and office.
"He is still a man of the people," one aide said last week.
Mr Blocher is also ruthless. His party has voted to remove its incumbent member of the federal council, Samuel Schmid, if Mr Blocher fails in his attempt to win a second seat for himself and drives the SVP into opposition.
Swiss newspapers have been pondering the demise of the old "magic formula" - whereby all four main parties share power in a grand coalition, regardless of the election result.
It is generally agreed that the formula has brought Switzerland, a historically neutral country of about 7 million people, stability and prosperity.
But it has proved less adept at providing good governance in times of economic difficulty, and now appears in danger of collapse.
If the SVP fails to get a federal council seat for Mr Blocher, it has vowed to wreak havoc from outside, by blocking legislation in parliament. Most observers believe that it could win even more votes at the next election.
Meanwhile, the tabloid newspaper Blick is offering readers a free first-class pass for Swiss railways if they can correctly forecast what will happen to Mr Blocher on Wednesday.
"Swiss politics is normally very boring," said Mr Lutz. "This is no longer the case."
Tycoon who made politics a lot less boring
÷ The son of a Protestant pastor, Christoph Blocher,63, emerged from humble origins to become one of the richest men in Switzerland. A self-made billionaire, he owns a chemicals factory, EMS Chemie, with interests across the world
÷ Married with four children, Mr Blocher studied law, then went into business, before plunging into politics in the 1970s. He has headed the Zürich wing of the far-right Swiss People's party (SVP) since 1977, and has been a Swiss MP since 1979
÷ Mr Blocher is the most controversial politician in Switzerland, because of his outspoken views on immigration and the EU. In 1986 he fought a successful campaign against Switzerland's membership of the UN - but lost another referendum last year
÷ His preferred language is German
÷ Mr Blocher is frequently compared to Jörg Haider, former leader of the far-right Austrian Freedom party. Others say he has more in common with Mrs Thatcher. He admires Winston Churchill
The Guardian
2003-12-08 14:56 | User Profile
Whilst public opinion is becoming increasingly supportive of many Nationalist policies. European political systems are anything but representative or democratic. European Nationalists parties are still being radicalised and ostracised by the media and we are subsequence being locked out of the political system.
They think that they can contain our movement by compromising and manipulating it. They think that we are a weak willed and subservient people.
But on every count we will prove them wrong!
Gregz
"Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall" - Confucious
2003-12-18 20:46 | User Profile
I agree with a lot of the points in the Guardian article except that the SVP is not a nationalist party. It is, as they say, a right-wing party, i.e. conservative. Mr Blocher may have some nationalist issues up his sleeve, like restrictions on immigration, but I doubt very much if they are genuine and are merely doing this to gain popular support and votes.
Here is a commentary from a truly nationalist Swiss political party, the Partei National Orientierter Schweizer.
[QUOTE][SIZE=4][B]Commentary to the Federal Council elections[/B][/SIZE]
The victory for the right-wingers is not victory for the National Opposition
The Party of National Orientated Swiss (PNOS) calmly took note of the Swiss election results of Wednesday, 10 December 2003. ââ¬ËConcordanceââ¬â¢ - the Swiss system of consensual decision making - in the Federal Council [the cabinet] has been maintained. The Federal Council ââ¬Ëthrillerââ¬â¢ was not such an excitement after all. There were no ââ¬Ëdead bodiesââ¬â¢ and the only significant happening was that the lifeless CVP [Christian Democrats] have been pushed aside. PNOS was particularly pleased to see Ruth Metzler being voted out of office. She has now finally got what she deserved for her hostile politics towards the Swiss people. PNOS also welcomes the fact that the ââ¬Ëemptyââ¬â¢ seat in the Federal Council was not filled on the basis of quotas but that the candidate was selected on the basis of qualifications alone. The Federal Council is now represented twice in Canton Zurich which in some respects brings imbalance in the system. However, the class significance of regional agglomerations is much less today: they no longer signify class communities. The difference between the social classes within any region is larger than between the various regions of the country. For this reason PNOS is particularly criticical of Zurich having two capitalists members in the Federal Council. However, regarding the election of Christoph Blocher PNOS is pleased. But not as many may think because Blocher is "right-wing" or "conservative" but because the people will soon see that the Peopleââ¬â¢s Party - the SVP - is simply just another system party that will do nothing to alter the overall situation in Switzerland. Switzerland will continue to be steered towards disaster under the new government. There is no gain in merely changing the heads of the Federal Council? The problems lie much deeper and can only be tackled by bringing about a sweeping, across-the-board change in the system. The people are expecting a lot from the new government but their hopes they will be bitterly frustrated. The sovereign head of the country - the people - will one day realise that only the true opposition of the PNOS holds concrete solutions for the problems confronting the country.[/QUOTE]