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Staging a comeback

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1#
发表于 2008-9-11 13:50:02 | 只看该作者 回帖奖励 |倒序浏览 |阅读模式
Sep 9th 2008
From the Economist Intelligence Unit ViewsWire

The Swiss People’s Party may struggle to re-enter the government


Pressure on the Swiss defence minister to step down threatens to disrupt the balance of the government and create a chance for the return to government of the country’s largest party, the opposition Swiss People’s Party (SVP). However, the current situation has no precedent and it is not obvious how the governmental problem caused by a cabinet vacancy would be solved. The SVP is keen to get back into government, but it faces a challenge in staying the country’s largest party at the next general election.
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2#
 楼主| 发表于 2008-9-11 13:51:28 | 只看该作者
An officer not a gentleman
Samuel Schmid, Switzerland’s defence minister, is under renewed pressure following revelations that he failed to disclose to his cabinet colleagues allegations of sexual harassment against Roland Nef, who became chief of the Swiss armed forces in January 2008 on Mr Schmid’s recommendation. The allegations prompted a police investigation, although no charges were laid. In July, after this information became public, Mr Nef resigned. Mr Schmid had originally stated that he first became aware of the allegations in April 2007; however, he conceded in a television interview on September 4th that he had first heard of them in November 2006. As is often the case with political scandals, Mr Schmid’s troubles now relate more to the appearance of a cover-up than to the original transgression.

Mr Schmid’s fellow cabinet members have stood behind the defence minister until now. However, the latest revelations put his position into renewed uncertainty. Even some of his supporters are voicing disapproval of his conduct, and some calls for resignation have already been made. Mr Schmid is in line to become vice-president in 2009, a largely ceremonial role, but one that parliament may be inclined to deny him nonetheless. If his parliamentary support declines further, he may decide to quit.
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3#
 楼主| 发表于 2008-9-11 13:51:38 | 只看该作者
Rightful place
The Schmid affair has national importance because of the opportunity it offers to the SVP to return to government. By a custom observed for over forty years, positions in the seven-member cabinet, known as the Federal Council, have been divided roughly on a pro rata basis between the country’s four largest parties. Currently, however, the SVP has no representation in cabinet. It topped the poll in the October 2007 general election, winning 62 of parliament’s 200 seats. In the previous government the SVP had two ministers, Mr Schmid and the party's leading personality, Christoph Blocher. The SVP demanded in the wake of the 2007 election that the controversial Mr Blocher return. Although he was considered to have performed well as justice minister in 2003-07, his polarising style and brash method of governing created considerable tension in the cabinet.

In the event, however, parliament elected another SVP politician, Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf to the government; she ignored SVP instructions and accepted the post. In response, the SVP moved into opposition—the first time a major party had done so since 1959, when the current governing arrangements were established. To punish Ms Widmer-Schlumpf for ignoring the party's wishes, the SVP leadership decided to expel her from the party, and under party rules was forced to do expel the entire cantonal section that she belonged to.
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4#
 楼主| 发表于 2008-9-11 13:51:51 | 只看该作者
Cuckoo in the nest
This rump party section has reformed itself to create the Buergerlich-Demokratische Partei (BDP), a pragmatic conservative party, with traditional SVP instincts, but less of the populist and isolationist tendencies that have characterised the SVP more recently. A number of other SVP cantonal sections have also suffered splits, whereby more moderate party members have formed their own BDP sections, most notably the powerful Bern cantonal party, which has functioned as a more moderate counterweight to the Zurich SVP, where the current hard-line leadership of the SVP is based.

While Ms Widmer-Schlumpf and Mr Schmid were elected on the SVP ticket, they found themselves in a curious position: they were in government, but their party was in opposition—and they were banned from the SVP faction's parliamentary meetings. Ms Widmer-Schlumpf was a pariah in the party from the moment she accepted a cabinet post; Mr Schmid, for his part, has frequently been in the crosshairs of the hardline SVP leadership for his moderate conservative politics.

Both ministers are now members of the BDP, but this has created a further anomaly. Swiss government has for decades been based on sharing the government posts between the four largest parties. Yet the largest party currently has no ministers, while two belong to the BDP—which has only a handful of parliamentary deputies. This is not even sufficient to form a parliamentary faction. BDP hopes to attract more SVP defectors have not (yet) borne fruit. This may reflect the uncertainty of the BDP's current position. The party is planning to constitute itself at the national level later in 2008 and then to contest local and cantonal elections first, before tackling the general election in 2011.
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5#
 楼主| 发表于 2008-9-11 13:52:01 | 只看该作者
Up for grabs
The SVP is keen to return to government and has led the calls for Mr Schmid to resign. Its leadership had hoped that a spell in opposition would allow it to push more core issues, such as organising a referendum to restrict access to the labour market for citizens of Bulgaria and Romania after those states joined the EU. However their efforts have not met with great success.

Nevertheless, the SVP is intent on returning to the government on its own terms, with people that represent the hardline Blocher positions favoured by the leadership. The other major parties, however, are enjoying the calmer atmosphere in the government since Mr Blocher departed. This dynamic is helping to protect the position of Mr Schmid.

If he were to step down, the election of a new minister would not be straightforward. All nominees must be approved by parliament; prior to 2007 this was a formality for candidates of the big four parties, but in that year a majority denied Mr Blocher and it seems unlikely that he would be voted into cabinet now. This leaves three possible options: another SVP candidate, which parliament may or may not approve; a candidate from one of the other big four parties, most likely the Christian Democratic Party (CVP); or someone else from the BDP, on the basis that the party is an outcrop of the SVP. Any of these outcomes would be unprecedented.
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6#
 楼主| 发表于 2008-9-11 13:52:10 | 只看该作者
Even in its best-case scenario, the SVP looks unlikely to have more than one cabinet post until the next election in 2011. At that time, moreover, it will face a challenge from the BDP for the right-of-centre vote. The SVP has not traditionally been as radical a party as it is today under the Zurich-based leadership. This offers the BDP some hope of winning over SVP supporters. Depending on how successful the BDP is in this endeavour, the next election could see a realignment of the right, with the SVP pushed towards the fringe and the BDP joining the centrist Radical Democratic Party (FDP) and the CVP in a centre-right power bloc. To do so, the BDP must maintain some momentum, which seems possible while it has two ministers in the government who can be forceful advocates for its pragmatic, non-ideological brand of middle-of-the-road conservatism. Thus, there is potentially more riding on Mr Schmid’s fate than the career of one politician.
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