Rightist party leads in Switzerland

[demoleft]

Source: Reuters/IHT

The rightist Swiss People's Party consolidated its position as the biggest group in Parliament on Sunday, winning nearly 29 percent of the vote, according to preliminary election results.

The populist SVP's victory was widely expected after it ran a controversial campaign calling for the expulsion of foreigners who commit serious crimes. The party lifted its share of the vote by 2.1 percentage points to 28.8 percent.

Its nearest rivals, the Social Democrats, lost 4 percentage points to 19.1 percent of the vote, according to a national projection provided by the Swiss broadcaster SF, partly because environmentally minded voters turned to the Greens.

The center-right Free Democrats took 15.9 percent of the vote in the alpine nation, a slight decline from 2003, while the center-left, family-friendly Christian Democrats were steady at 14.6 percent.



Read more: http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/21/europe/21swiss.php?WT.mc_id=rsseurope

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I don't know if you know already.
Swiss politics turn to right.
We needed this in Europe, expecially in these days.
We really did...

[seriousstan]

1. I guess the Swiss don't like being invaded through the immigration policies.

[LeftishBrit]

3. Sure. It's the mark of a far-rightie to hate foreigners

As far as I'm concerned, it might be time to give the Swiss their wish - if they hate foreigners that much, maybe foreigners shouldn't use them as a holiday destination either!!! See how long they'd survive as isolationists!

To be fair, I don't really care that much what Switzerland as an individual country does or doesn't do; but I'm afraid of the infection spreading to other countries in Europe.

[seriousstan]

4. When you have a social program for supporting your poor and disadvantaged

being overrun by people entering your country, it tends to piss you off. I have a feeling the Swiss could live fine all by themselves.

Tell me how you are coming with that Swiss embargo on tourism thing of yours.

[LeftishBrit]

7. That was an expression of frustration on my part; not a real policy

All I can really do is continue to join the fight against racism and xenophobia in my own country.

Do you seriously support far-right Europaean parties??????? If so, what are you doing on a liberal board?

And NOT every country with a welfare state has that degree of hatred for foreigners. Britain has a welfare state and (while we have always had some problems with xenophobia), we do NOT elect far-right parties to government!!! The BNP has not one single MP!

[LeftishBrit]

2. God, how depressing.

You bet they're not only interested in expelling those 'who commit serious crimes'.

[Zynx]

5. There is a very distinct surge in nativism around the world.

That's disturbing to say the least.

[Odin2005]

6. The Europeans aren't used to the levels of immigration the US is used to.

We are an immigrant-based society, the Europeans aren't, especially in places like Switzerland. Here in the US immigrant famllies assimilate rapidly because Americans don't really have a sense of "ethnic" identity; In, say, Germany on the other hand, 2nd or even 3rd generation descendants of Turkish immigrants aren't accepted as "true Germans" by other Germans. Hence the problems with getting immigrants to assimilate, leading to a vicious cycle of more and more nativism.

[LeftishBrit]

8. It depends where in Europe

The UK has a long tradition of immigration, and also a long tradition of xenophobia, which to some degree changes its targets from time to time. Both immigration *and* racism have been subjected to significant legal controls, however; and the far right (British National Party) has elected local councillors, but no MPs, and short of some disaster, probably won't. The Tories ran a fairly xenophobic campaign in 2005, which is generally thought to have backfired on them.

In the UK, I don't think there has been either a surge or a drop in xenophobia overall for a long time. It's a chronic problem, and every now and then it surfaces in an ugly way; but I think it was probably even worse when Enoch Powell was rabble-rousing in the 1960s than it is now.

Switzerland probably does have less of a tradition of immigration, though it's a pretty multi-national country in itself; and it also seems to be relatively conservative in some other ways - e.g. women only got the vote there in 1971.

Probalb

[ohio2007]

9. "..a controversial campaign calling for the expulsion of foreigners who commit serious crimes.."

This policy will only get the violent criminals out of Switzerland for a short time.