Right-wing Swiss People’s Party wins record votes in election

The right-wing Swiss People’s Party (SVP) won a landmark victory this month after receiving the most votes ever recorded in a Swiss general election. Despite taking 29% of the votes and gaining seven seats the party, led by extreme nationalist and billionaire chemical industrialist, Christoph Blocher, failed to get an overall majority and will continue to rule the country as part of a coalition with the other national parties including the Social Democrats, the Radicals and the Christian Democrats. None of these major parties challenged the overtly racist campaigning approach of the SVP.

The SVP party have been criticised internationally for their election campaign and policies which have a substantial anti-migrant slant including a ban on the building the minarets, features of Islamic mosques and the deportation of foreign criminals along with their entire families. They also created a video which depicted ‘heaven’ in Switzerland as a place where trains run on time and families holiday in the Alps and ‘hell’ as a place populated with Muslim women wearing veils, African men standing idly on the street and migrant young people attacking Swiss girls.

Most notably, they caused outrage following a racist campaigning poster which sees white sheep kicking a black sheep out of the country followed by the tagline: “For more security”. The party were unrepentant and admitted that it was part of their campaign to eject foreign criminals who commit crimes in the country. However the real concern for migrants in Switzerland was the huge amount of support that the party received for their policies. Uprisings amongst migrant and left wing groups erupted in Bern leading up to the election.

The ethnic tension in the country mirrors that of other european nations which have seen a rise in violent, racist attacks amidst the anti-migrant fear driven hysteria. Antonio da Costa, 37, from Angola was attacked by a gang of racists who slashed his face, chest and neck and almost severed his thumb from his hand. Another incident saw an African man accosted by two masked racists holding a chain saw who announced: “We don’t need Africans in our country. We’re here to kill you!”

In December 2007, Swiss parliamentarians voted 246 to 115 against keeping Blocher in his cabinet seat and instead supported fellow SVP member Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf as his successor. Widmer-Schlumpf is seen by many as more moderate than the aggressive nationalist. The move resulted in the SVP withdrawing from the coalition government ending the almost 50 year grand coalition with Blocher warning: "The great thing about this country is that parliament can throw people out of the government but not out of politics.”