Swiss People’s Party grabs 10 per cent of Geneva parliament
For the first time in its history, the Swiss People's Party (SPP) has entered the Geneva parliament. The right-wing party won 10 seats in Sunday's elections.
The party’s success followed an intensive election campaign led by the head of the Geneva branch, Jacques Pagan.
The People’s Party’s General Secretary, Gregor Rutz, told the Sunday newspaper Dimanche.ch that “election campaigns in big towns have to be punchier than in peripheral cantons”.
Lutz said his party had always wanted to have a stronghold in the French-speaking part of Switzerland.
In June, the party created a coordination office for the branch in French-speaking Switzerland. The party also ensured that high German was spoken during its assemblies rather than Swiss-German, which French-speaking members find difficult to understand.
The party’s efforts have already been rewarded in other cantons, including Valais and Neuchâtel.
In 1999, the party did very well in national elections, becoming the second largest grouping in the House of Representatives.
“Our aim for 2003 is to progress from the current eight per cent to 15 per cent in the French-speaking cantons,” Rutz said.
Sunday’s results
Sunday’s results, based on 90 per cent of ballots cast, showed most other parties losing seats. These included the Social Democratic Party, which lost three seats, and the Left Alliance, which conceded five.
The Radical Party also lost three seats.
On the other hand, the Liberals and Christian Democratic Party were able to keep respectively 23 and 12 of their representatives in parliament.
The Greens, who took an additional seat for a total of 11, were the only party to gain some ground besides the SPP.
As a result, the Liberal Party remains the parliament’s largest political group, followed by the Social Democratic Party (19 seats), the Left Alliance (14), the Christian Democratic Party (12), the Radical Party (11), the Greens (11) and the Swiss People’s Party (10).
Around 36 per cent of the electorate took part in Sunday’s elections.
swissinfo with agencies
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