Media poll shows shift to the right ahead of 2023 federal elections

Green parties made historic gains in the last parliamentary elections in 2019. © Keystone / Alexandra Wey

Centre-right political parties are making slight gains in Switzerland, while the Greens are losing a bit of ground, according to a new media poll ahead of the 2023 federal elections.

If the federal election were held today, there would be a slight shift to the right based on a poll conducted by the Swiss media agency Tamedia and the news daily 20 Minutes. The centre-right Radical Liberal Party would receive 16.4% of the vote (up 1.3 percentage points) and the centrist Liberal Greens would receive 9.2% (up 1.4 percentage points). The left-wing Green Party, on the other hand, would lose 1.4 percentage points to maintain an electoral share of 11.8%.

The poll, published on Friday, also predicts slight changes for other major political parties. The right-wing Swiss People’s Party, Switzerland’s most popular party, would gain 1.1 points while its closest rival, the left-wing Social Democratic Party, and the Centre would each lose 1.1 points.

Previous poll

An identical poll conducted in December by the same news agencies showed that both the Greens and the People’s Party were gaining ground. While the December poll showed the Greens had lost some ground since their historic gains in the last election in 2019, they still had much stronger support than in the 2015 election.

Friday’s poll, which included the views of 26,000 people, also links voters’ preferences to their level of education and income. The Social Democratic Party is most popular among people with a higher education degree while People’s Party’s popularity was greatest among people with lower education and income levels.