Voters ahoy!

Some results will be foregone conclusions, many won’t. Here, in no particular order, are five things to look out for.

1. Will the Pirate Party be able to follow its stunning success in Berlin last month when it attracted 8.5 per cent of the vote, winning its first ever seats in a state parliament?

2. And what about the Greens – six months ago a real “zeitgeist” party after the Fukushima disaster in Japan. To what extent will their main message be drowned out by immigration and economic concerns?

3. How well will the pollsters perform after the minaret debacle?

4.Fulvio Pelli, president of the struggling Radical Party, reportedly has his work cut out to keep his Ticino seat in the House of Representatives. Failure to get re-elected could mean retirement for the 60-year-old and a leadership battle in his party.

5. The Conservative Democratic Party – who split from the Swiss People’s Party in a bitter schism after the 2007 cabinet election – desperately need to improve their performance to boost Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf’s chances of being re-elected in December. It will be hard to claim one of seven cabinet seats with just 3.6 per cent of the vote (the latest poll prediction).

Anyone can put up videos on the internet. And that’s what many of the 3,000 or so candidates in today’s elections have done (see video below). The main reason is that Swiss law forbids television campaign adverts.