Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The 2011 Swiss Federal Elections: Right-wing Defeat and Increased Fractionalisation

2012; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 35; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/01402382.2012.665747

1743-9655

Georg Lütz,

Social Policy and Reform Studies

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. For other recent reports in this elections in context series, see Allern (2010 Allern Haugsgjerd, Elin. 2010. ‘Survival of a Majority Coalition: The Norwegian Parliamentary Election of 14 September 2009’. West European Politics, 33(4): 904–12. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), Arter (2011 Arter, David. 2011. ‘Taking the Gilt off the Conservatives’ Gingerbread: The April 2011 Finnish General Election’. West European Politics, 34(6): 1284–95. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), Dinas (2010 Dinas, Elias. 2010. ‘The Greek General Election of 2009: Pasok – The Third Generation’. West European Politics, 33(2): 389–98. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), Fass (2010), Fernandes (2011 Fernandes Manuel, Jorge. 2011. ‘The 2011 Portuguese Election: Looking for a Way Out’. West European Politics, 34(6): 1296–303. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), Haughton et al. (2011 Haughton Novotná,, Tim Tereza and Deegan-Krause, Kevin. 2011. ‘The 2010 Czech and Slovak Parliamentary Elections’. West European Politics, 34(2): 394–402. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), Kosiara-Pedersen (2012 Kosiara-Pedersen, Karina. 2012. ‘The 2011 Danish Parliamentary Election: A Very New Government’. West European Politics, 35(2): 415–24. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), Lisi (2010 Lisi, Marco. 2010. ‘The Renewal of the Socialist Majority: The 2009 Portuguese Legislative Elections’. West European Politics, 33(2): 381–88. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), Little (2011 Little, Conor. 2011. ‘The General Election of 2011 in the Republic of Ireland: All Change Utterly’. West European Politics, 34(6): 1304–13. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) Quinn (2011 Quinn, Thomas. 2011. ‘From New Labour to New Politics: The British General Election of 2010’. West European Politics, 34(2): 403–11. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), and van Holsteyn (2011 Van Holsteyn, J. J.M. 2011. ‘The Dutch Parliamentary Election of 2010’. West European Politics, 34(2): 412–19. [Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). 2. See http://www.bfs.admin.ch for election results at the cantonal level. 3. See ‘Wahlbarometer’ at http://www.gfsbern.ch on behalf of the SRG SSR (the public broadcasting company). 4. Switzerland does not have any disclosure rules on campaign financing, so it is not known officially what parties and candidates spend in their campaign and where the money comes from. 5. See http://tsr.blogs.com/argent-et-politique/2011/11/index.html(accessed 6 January 2012). 6. Greco report under http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/greco/evaluations/round3/GrecoEval3(2011)4_Switzerland_Two_EN.pdf 7. http://www.transparency.ch/de/PDF_files/Divers/Positionspapier_Politikfinanzierung.pdf 8. http://www.osce.org/odihr/87417 9. The electoral districts for both chambers are the cantons which vary greatly in population size and as a consequence in district magnitude for the national council elections. The largest canton has 34 seats, six cantons have only one seat and in those cantons a plurality election takes place where the candidate with the most votes in a single round gets elected. 10. The Swiss law does not allow political campaign adds in TV and radio, so parties have to focus on newspapers, posters, leaflets and the internet. 11. The elections to the 46 members of the Council of States – two per canton and one per half-canton – are held according to cantonal legislation. Almost all cantons elect the two members with a majoritarian elections which require an absolute majority in the first round and a simple majority in the second round (see Lutz and Strohmann 2008).