The right-wing People’s Party has built up a strong base of supporters in the past few years, but its polarising policies mean that it also has a lot of fierce opponents, says a study of the 2011 parliamentary elections.
The Selects Electoral Study written by Swiss political scientists and published on Monday says the party’s rightwing line had made it unattractive to centre voters.
“A clear majority of the electorate cannot imagine ever voting for the People’s Party,” the study found.
“The People’s Party was one of the major contributors to the polarisation that has taken place in Switzerland over the last 20 years, and for a long time its positioning of itself as a national-conservative rightwing party was a recipe for success. But in the 2011 elections it became the victim of this very polarisation,” the report says.
Although it remains the strongest party with 26.6 per cent of the vote, it has lost some of its potential electorate, and its isolation in the political landscape is the reason why it failed to win the Senate seats it was hoping for, despite fielding prominent candidates.
Fragmented centre
On the other hand, two new centre parties, the Conservative Democrats and the Liberal Greens were able to draw supporters away from almost all other parties.
The former, seen as being more right-leaning, attracted equal numbers of votes from three of the established parties: the People’s Party, the centre-right Radicals and the centre-left Social Democrats.
The Liberal Greens, which is slightly left-leaning, drew votes from the Radicals, Social Democrats and the Greens. It also attracted support from many people who did not vote in the 2007 elections.
The study by the Swiss Foundation for Research and Social Sciences is based on nearly 4,400 interviews conducted up to three weeks after the elections in October 2011.
House of Representatives
People’s Party: 54 seats (-8)
Social Democrats: 46 (+3)
Radical Party: 30 (-5)
Christian Democrats: 28 (-3)
Green Party: 15 (-5)
Liberal Greens: 12 (+9)
Conservative Democrats: 9 (+9)
Senate
People’s Party: 5 seats (-2)
Social Democrats: 11 seats (+3)
Christian Democrats: 12 seats (-2)
Radical Party: 11 seats (-1)
Green Party: 2
Liberal Greens: 2
Conservative Democrats: 1
Independent: 1