Why Trub has trouble with voting

swissinfo.ch

The typical Emmental village of Trub boasts beautiful scenery, good cheese, industrious people and even its own song known throughout the country.

And yet according to the statistics, Trub is home to the most apathetic voters in Switzerland. It has recently had difficulty in persuading even a quarter of them to turn out and cast their ballot.

If you look around the village square, however, you will soon realise that Switzerland is in no danger of collapsing here.

The village square in Trub is typical of Emmental villages in that it offers what one might call a secular trinity: a church, a tavern and a dairy. Scattered around the village are around 140 farms.

The church is the place where the virtues and decisions of the rulers used to be proclaimed. The tavern is where these decisions were discussed and made by the most influential citizens and then posted on the notice board of the dairy – which is traditionally also the meeting place of the young people.

Today the commune has a modern administration, decisions are made in council meetings in the schoolhouse and can also be viewed online.

Trub today

“We live in an area with a very high quality of life,” council clerk Ernst Kohler told swissinfo.

He is not referring to motorway access, airports, opera, theatre and bars, but rather fresh air, tranquility, the integrity of the environment, low-impact tourism, and the wonderful hikes on the local Napf hill with its seams of gold.

“We have excellent water and great water reserves”, Kohler continues.

“And another thing,” added the president of the commune council, Christine Reber-Eller: “The young folk here still know what’s right.”

This is another advantage of the place. Trub people are reliable and have integrity, which is why they are popular both as employers and as employees.

Economically underdeveloped

And so the clerk and the president of the council have gently steered the conversation to the worries of Trub.

“We are a dead end here in the Upper Emmental,” said Kohler. Officially, it is referred to as an economically underdeveloped commune. “It is only thanks to financial allocations that we have enough money to do our jobs.”

To put it bluntly: the rich communes in canton Bern subsidise Trub. “And they don’t let us forget it.”

So the aim is to stop young people from leaving and attract new residents, maintain agriculture, attract businesses to set down roots in Trub, and promote tourism.

This is all happening fairly successfully. But there have been some setbacks too.

“Our post office has just been closed,” said Kohler.

The real Switzerland

But back to the highest voter apathy in Switzerland.

“That was quite a wake-up call,” said Reber-Eller. “We wanted to get rid of that reputation and the appeals have borne results. We are now about average.”

But the underlying reasons for this say a lot about Trub. Thanks to the Trueberbueb – a yodel song that has become a national folksong and which every Swiss soldier has sung countless times, depending on how much alcohol has been consumed.

Trub has become a byword for the real, staunch, independent Switzerland.

It was the fact that the citizens of Trub, of all people, didn’t vote that caught the attention of the media.

Swiss abroad partly to blame

The Emmental was a stronghold of the radical Protestant Anabaptist sect, which first arose in the 16th century.

Mercilessly pursued by the rulers of Bern in the 17th and 18th centuries, the Anabaptists fled to the Jura, the Netherlands, southern Germany and later overseas, especially to north America.

This is why many Swiss abroad have their roots in Trub and 149 of them are registered as voters there. And because they hardly ever vote, they have a negative effect on the voting statistics.

Rural versus urban

But voting behaviour in Trub could also be an expression of a deep-rooted problem in Switzerland – a gradual alienation between urban and rural Switzerland.

Many referendums concern urban Switzerland because considerably more people live in these areas. “More often than not, they are about issues that do not concern the citizens of Trub,” said Kohler, and so the people here are less likely to vote.

“But that is no excuse and we have, after all, improved.

“If we ever had to vote on Switzerland joining the EU, the Trub people would no doubt go to the polls in droves.”

Urs Maurer in Trub, swissinfo.ch (Translated from German)

Trub

Trub is situated in the Emmental in canton Bern

Its population has decreased sharply over the last century:
1910: 2’500
1990: 1’613
2009: 1’470

Despite its small population, large scale emigration means that 50,000 people claim the commune as their place of origin.

The commune is largely agricultural, but also has a few small enterprises, mainly engaged in wood processing.

The area contains 75km of marked hiking trails, encouraging soft tourism.

Its highest point is the Napf (1’408 m), a popular destination for hikers. It lies in a nature reserve and offers breathtaking views.

The Napf is also well known for its gold. The reserves are too small to be commercially exploited, but panning is popular with amateurs.

The song which has made Trub famous all over Switzerland is Dr Trueberbueb – the Lad from Trub. The words were written in 1875 by the pastor of nearby Trubschachen, Gottfried Strasser, and the tune was the work of yodel composer J. Rudolf Krenger (1854 – 1925).

Voting turnout in Trub

Voters in Switzerland are usually invited to cast a ballot three or four times a year on matters of national or local importance.

Between May 2006 and June 2008, the highest turnout in Trub was 24.6 per cent.

The lowest was 10 per cent. In two other votes in the same period the turnout was 13.1 per cent.