Our Unknown Neighbor Switzerland

... and the former director of the Wiesneck Study House of the Central for Political Education, Dr. von Schrötter, added, The strangest democracy in the world.

Dr. von Schrötter started his lecture with a short reminder on Swiss history. While Napoleon carved out some French-speaking parts of Switzerland and made it French territory, he imposed a Republican Constitution upon the rest, thus creating the Helvetic Republic.

In 1815, the Vienna Congress reestablished the Confederation, guaranteeing its borders and demanding Swiss neutrality as a buffer between Austria and France.

The Sonderbund War. Protestant cantons are green,
Catholic cantons are violett. Neuenburg and Appenzell IR (orange) remained neutral.

In 1847, conservative catholic cantons founded a Sonderbund (a separatist alliance) that culminated in a civil war. It lasted from November 3 to 29, 1847, and resulted in the September 12, 1848 Federal Constitution, unifying Switzerland into a federal state.

In their constitution, the Swiss copied the American form of government with its two chambers. The Nationalrat (National Council) corresponds to the House of Representatives. The deputies are elected according to the number of people.

The 23 Swiss cantos

The Swiss cantons correspond to the states in America. Each canton sends two senators called Ständeräte (State Councillors) into the Council of States (Ständerat), which participates in the legislation.

There is a disproportion in the number of senators per inhabitant in the States. There are two senators for 0.58 million people in Wyoming and 39 million in California, i.e., a ratio of 65. The ratio in Switzerland is only 43, with two Ständeräte for 0.037 million people in Uri and 1.58 million in Zurich.

Here, the similarities with the States end in particular with those four national languages in Switzerland.

I will start with a statement with which Dr. von Schrötter ended his lecture: The Swiss people are the true sovereign, who not only determine the composition of parliament every four years through elections but can also prevent any act of parliament through referenda.

So, Switzerland has no supreme court. The people decide any argument in the interpretation of the constitution, and they must approve any constitutional change in a national referendum.

Switzerland has neither a head of state nor a head of government but is governed by a college of seven ministers called Bundesräte (federal councilors). The number seven is defined in the constitution.

In Switzerland, concordance means considering the will of the voters when forming the government. The major parties should be represented according to their electoral strength, i.e., the populistic SVP (Swiss People's Party), the SP (Socialist Party), and the liberal FDP (Free Democratic Party) have two seats. In contrast, the smallest, the CVP (Christian People's Party)*, has one federal councilor. Concordance democracy thus reflects the strength of the individual parties and their different positions.
*To win over voters other than Christians, the CVP now calls itself the Middle

Since 1884, the Free Democrats (FDP) have been in the government without interruption, i.e. for 175 years.

On October 22, the Swiss elected the 200 deputies of the Nationalrat. The strongest party in parliament, the populistic SVP, and the SP, gained while the liberal FDP and particularly the Greens lost. The Middle remained constant.

This national vote is traditionally followed by an election of the seven federal councilors. They are elected individually by the Bundesversammlung (Federal Assembly), i.e., in a joint session of the National Council and Council of States.

©CH Info. All other slides are ©Dieter von Schrötter

On December 13, all seven federal councilors must and will be elected in a secret ballot. Only one SP councilor who retires is replaced; the other men and women will surely be re-elected for another four-year term. 

 In principle, the magic formula holds. The SVP with 62, the SP with 47, and the Mitte with 45 votes in the Federal Assembly should have two federal councilors each, while the FDP, with only 41, should fall back to one Bundesrat.

However, the Swiss concordance assures that nobody will be deselected. Will one seat of the Liberals, still in fourth place, become vacant, then a crucial vote for a second seat for the Mitte may result.

*