‘Parliamentarians are constantly campaigning’

One year after Swiss national elections, are parliamentarians still in tune with the people and are they defending the interests of the Swiss Abroad? The three guests in our Let’s Talk debate scrutinise the work of a more right-wing and less green parliament. On October 23, 2023, the Swiss parliament shifted to the right, following the electoral defeat of the ecologists and the advance of the conservative right. One year on, in our Let’s Talk debate, gfs.bern political scientist Lukas Golder notes that polarisation has increased and that parliament is finding it difficult to find solutions. “Parliamentarians are constantly campaigning. They practise a kind of symbolic politics. We’ve already seen this with the [right-wing] Swiss People’s Party, but now we’re also seeing it with the [left-wing] Social Democratic Party and the [centre-right] Radical-Liberal Party,” he says. ‘The Greens are no longer scary’ Florent Quiquerez, a parliamentary journalist with the Tamedia press group ...