By Luca Niederer, Silvan Vifian
In the autumn of 2023, the Swiss parliament was newly elected. At an initial glance, the results appear unequivocal, with the conservative groups dominating. However, the Swiss political system is based on concordance rather than strength alone, emphasizing a nuanced evaluation of power dynamics. So the pivotal question arises who really has won in terms of power shifts.
The national council's final results are displayed in the chart above along with the corresponding seats. This reflects the effective power in this chamber of parliament and highlights the wins of the conservative party ‘SVP’ - which is also accurate and crucial to note. Nevertheless, the process for allocating seats is intricate and involves so-called ‘list combinations’ making it difficult to see through (e.g. the liberal greens have lost 0.5% of the electorate and lost 6 seats). Regardless of the final seat totals, our analysis will concentrate on the percentages that the parties actually received from the electorate to examine the trend of the electorate.
Our analysis can be further simplified by classifying the numerous political parties into three main categories: left, middle, and conservative forces. Facilitating a broader understanding, the simplification directs attention towards general trends rather than fixating on individual party intricacies.
This new perspective unveils the intricacies behind the political curtain, shedding light on the nuanced divisions within the parliament. Based on the numbers it becomes evident, that the direct translation of percentages into seat equivalents is not a straightforward correlation. Furthermore, it is apparent that certain percentages were overlooked due to their low marginal group status and lack of national significance (~2% of votes).
In order to enhance the comprehension of the overall outcome, we will take a look at the municipalities where each political group secured the relative majority of votes.
For Swiss politics, a discernible pattern can be recognized. The conservative forces hold control in the majority of the smaller land-like areas such as the canton of Thurgau, devoid of sizable urban centres and predominantly conservative. In contrast, larger areas like Berne, highlighted on the map, exhibit a left-leaning orientation. The middle parties emerge as clear winners across the high mountain alpine regions. This is due to the historical association of the largest middle party, rooted in Catholicism, which continues to wield considerable influence in these areas. So far, the election unfolds without anomalies.
However, the picture changes significantly when we examine the relative changes in the number of votes that each group received.
The following chart depicts which groups experienced the most percentage growth within each municipality.
Compared to the overall winner, it is immediately apparent that a greater number of municipalities had the largest gain in middle parties. However, the conservatives also achieved some increase in percentage in the western region of Switzerland. Let's go even further to analyze which municipality experienced the largest growth for a particular group in which they do not hold a relative majority. Thus, if the leading group is left or conservative, but the middle party has the largest growth, the municipality is marked as belonging to the middle party.
There is an adequate explanation why the results analysis graphic is narrowly focused. In a great deal of areas that they do not control, no other party could secure the most percentage. It's remarkable that they prevailed in so many regions, including the northeast to central Switzerland, where the majority of people are conservative.