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The 'Swiss People's Party' also known as the 'Democratic Union of the Centre' (; ; ; ) is a political party in Switzerland. The SVP is strongest in German-speaking areas of Switzerland and after the 2003 general election is the largest party in the Swiss lower house of parliament with 55 out of 200 seats. Its party chair is Ueli Maurer. It is a member of the governing coalition and has two members on the Swiss Federal Council, former President of the Confederation Samuel Schmid and Christoph Blocher.

Contents

History

Position and Issues

Recent Election Results and Growth

See also

Notes

External links

History

It traces its roots to 1917, with the formation of a Farmers' Party in Zurich. Similar parties followed in other cantons. These parties formed a loose federation that by 1929 was strong enough to get one of its leaders, Rudolf Minger, elected to the Federal Council. It has had a seat on the Federal Council since then. The party formally organised in 1936 as the Party of Farmers, Traders and Independents (German: ''Bauern-, Gewerbe- und Bürgerpartei [BGB];'' French: ''Parti des Paysans, Artisans et Indépendants [PAI]''). In 1971, it merged with the Democratic Parties of Glarus and Grisons to become the SVP.

Position and Issues

The SVP is the right-most of the four co-governing political parties in Switzerland. It is best known for opposing Swiss membership in international organisations such as the EU and UN, and for its campaigning for tougher immigration, asylum and penal laws. The party is socially and fiscally conservative, but secular in outlook. It is in favour of traditional family values, deregulation and reduced government spending (except for the areas of domestic security, the military and agricultural support). The SVP supports the Swiss traditions of private gun ownership, armed neutrality and the national militia army and opposes most forms of international security cooperation.
The party is often considered divided into a centrist-agrarian wing and an activist-nationalist wing. The latter, based in Zurich, is clearly predominant on the national level and, under the leadership of the popular and controversial businessman Christoph Blocher, functioned as a ''de facto'' opposition party from circa 1980 to 2003. The former, to which Samuel Schmid belongs, is more of a traditional mainstream party rooted in the Cantons of Bern and Graubünden, where it holds many seats in communal executives. It stresses the party's responsibilities as a member of the governing coalition and is more oriented towards seeking a consensus with the other parties. It is also more open to Swiss membership in international organisations.
In May, 2007, the party along with the Federal Democratic Union of Switzerland launched an initiative to append to the Swiss Federal Constitution to ban the construction of minarets. The SVP have stated that they are not against Muslims. Oskar Freysinger, member of parliament for the Swiss People's Party, said to BBC that "We don't have anything against Muslims." The party believes in freedom of religion and argues that the construction of minarets would endanger the freedom and go against keeping a secular state. Swiss move to ban minarets Imogen Foulkes .

On 1 August 2007, the SPP launched a direct mail, print and outdoor advertising campaign at a national level to gather signatures supporting the "Federal Popular Initiative for the Deportation of Criminal Foreigners". An illustration was used in which three white sheep roaming on a Swiss-flag delimitated area kick out a black sheep. The caption reads: "Bringing safety". In Geneva, the city council banned the outdoor campaign, and most of the outdoor posters already placed were destroyed. Thousands of the direct mail brochures with prepaid return postage were sent back without a signature to cause increased expenses to the campaign organisers.

Recent Election Results and Growth

At the expense of the major parties of the centre, the SVP has greatly increased its voter support in the last decades and presently holds roughly 25% of the national vote. In the 2003 elections, its ascendancy to the strongest party in Parliament led it to demand an additional seat on the Federal Council at the expense of the Christian Democrats (now the weakest of the parties in the governing coalition) and threatened to go into opposition if it didn't get it. Finally, Blocher was elected to the council, replacing Ruth Metzler-Arnold.
In 2003, it held 55 out of the 200 seats in the Swiss National Council (the lower chamber of the Swiss parliament), 8 out of the 46 seats in the upper chamber, and 2 out of the 7 seats on the Swiss Federal Council (the collective executive body).
By 2005, it held 23.3% of the seats in the Swiss Cantonal parliaments but only occupied 15.8% of the positions within the Swiss Cantonal governments (data from the "BADAC" index, weighted with the population and number of seats). This gap has been explained due to the fact that many members of the cantonal party sections are young and therefore underrepresented in the corpus of the more experienced personnel generally included within governments, and furthermore because of the pronounced positions of the People's Party in many Swiss cantons. Polls also predict that the SVP will stay the largest party in the Swiss National Council in the next election.

See also

★ Minaret controversy in Switzerland

Notes

External links

★ Swiss People's Party (in German and French)