[Bern 20 Reuters]-In the general elections of the All-state Parliament (the Senate) and the National Assembly (the House of Representatives) held on the 20th in Switzerland, while the far-right National Party maintained the 1st Party, the Green Party made a breakthrough. The possibility of sending ministers to a meeting (equivalent to the cabinet) for the first time has emerged.
Voters are strongly concerned about climate change in the election, and based on various outcome predictions, all major political parties have been deprived of their seats by the green party. Relations with immigrants and the European Union (EU), which were the tailwinds of the National Party in the past, were not the main issue, and the party also reduced its seats.
Green Party's Vice Leader Celine Barra said on local radio, “It ’s not a green wave, but a tsunami, a hurricane.”
The background is that the temperature of Switzerland, which has an inland climate, has risen twice as fast as the world average, making it more susceptible to the adverse effects of climate change. A 25-year-old female student majoring in psychology said, “Climate change is pretty clear to all of our generations and times, and we have no time to spare.”
According to a public broadcast SRF forecast, the House of Representatives expects the National Party's vote rate to drop by 3.6 percentage points from the previous election in 2015 to 25.8%. The green party is 13.0%, an increase of 5.9 percentage points, and the more promising free green party is 7.9%. If these two environmental parties overcome the policy differences and form a partnership, the total vote rate will be close to 21%, and it will qualify to get 26 seats out of the 200 seats of the House of Representatives and get one cabinet post.
The vote rate of other major political parties is 16.6% for the Social Democratic Party and 15.3% for the Liberal Democratic Party. However, the Christian Democratic Party, which has one minister, is expected to stay at a lower voter than the Green Party.
The federal conference has been composed of members of the National Party, Social Democratic Party, Liberal Democratic Party, and Christian Democratic Party since 1959. If the Green Party is to serve as a minister, the political impact will be enormous.
The Senate and Senate are scheduled to elect a minister for the Federal Congress in December.