ALL ABOUT   SWITZERLAND					GOVERNMENT POLITICS
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Switzerland's

Political System and Government

• federal
• cantonal (based on 26 cantonal constitutions)
• communal (in a few small cantons and in some 2500 small villages reunions of all citizens are held instead of cantonal and communal parliaments; local courts are usually common to several communities)

The federal constitution in principle reserves the areas of foreign relations, the army, customs examinations and tariffs, value added taxes and the legislation on currency, measure and weight, railways and communications to the confederation. On the other hand only the cantons (and some major cities) do have armed police forces, run hospitals and universities (with the exeption of two federal institutes of technology). Legislation on public schools is made by the cantons, resulting in 26 different education systems, but the public schools are actually run by the communes, much like many other public services (like water supply and garbage collection). The confederation, the cantons and the communes do collect income taxes to finances their affairs.

When it comes to the details, everything is just a little bit more complex in Switzerland's political system, however, because in almost any field of state activity federal legislation does try to establish a minimal amount of national standard on one side while leaving a respectable amount of self-determination to cantons and communes on the other side. A majority of the electorate does reaffirm this basic principle of Swiss politics over and over again - by rejecting centralistic laws and accepting federalistic laws in referendums.

While Switzerland's electorate has more rights of participation than in any other country and makes extensive use of them, women's right to vote was introduced relatively late in Switzerland: In 1959 a first canton introduced it on cantonal and (within its territory) on communal level on the very day a 67% majority of the national male electorate rejected the introduction on the national level. Only in 1971, women got the right to vote on national level and the last canton was forced by the federal court to introduce it on cantonal and communal level as late as 1990 (referring to a 1981 amendment of the federal constitution that explicitly grants equal rights to men and women).
> See also: Detailed chronology of women's right to vote in Switzerland

Switzerland's Federal Two-Chamber Parliament

• The National Council is Switzerland's "house of representatives". The 200 members are elected every four years according to a refined proportional election system, but since every canton forms a constituency and cantons have extremely different numbers of inhabitants, a few smaller cantons may only send one member to the national council, which results in majority elections for these.
• The Council of States represents the cantons (like the U.S. senate). Full cantons send two members, half cantons one, giving a total of 46 members. The rules how to elect the members are made under cantonal legislation, so they may differ from canton to canton. A majority of cantons does elect their members of the Council of States every four years on the same day as the members of the National Council, however.
• Both chambers discuss new laws separately. Sometimes they have to repeat a discussion if the other chamber has passed a different version of a law. Which chamber is discussing a new proposal first is not determined by the constitution but
• Being member of parliament is not a full-time job in Switzerland (at least they are not paid accordingly ...). Formally, parliament meets four times a year for several weeks. In between, each member has to read proposals for new laws individually and to attend one-day conferences of commissions.
• Both chambers of parliament form several commissions - some to control the work of the administration, some to debate new laws in depth. Specialists in fields like health, military and many more are elected to represent their party in these commissions. All parties of minimal size (5 members of parliament) are represented at least in a few commissions and smaller parties may join to form a fraction giving them the right to work in commissions.

Federal Government and Administration

Switzerland's federal government is called Bundesrat (Conseil Fédéral, Consiglio Federale) [Federal Council]. Please note that the official German term Bundesrat is unfortunately used in Germany and Austria with a completely different meaning for the small chamber of their parliaments; therefore you can't trust your German-English dictionary giving the translation Upper House (of parliament).

Switzerland's government is a team consisting of seven members with equal rights. Each member of the government acts as head of a department of the federal administration, but all major government decisions are taken in weekly government conferences either by consensus or by majority voting of all seven members. The members of Switzerland's federal goverment are usually (re-)elected every four years in December after the parliamentary elections by both chambers of the federal parliament meeting together as the Federal Assembly. There is no legal limit to the total term of office, some federal councillors have been in office for over 20 years.

Departments and Heads of Switzerland's Administration

On December, 10th, 2007 the Swiss parliament decided not to reelect Christoph Blocher as a member of government for another term of four years. Instead, Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, a more moderate member of his right-wing Swiss People's Party (SVP) was elected. This came not as a big surprise for the Swiss population after a dirty election campaign in autumn that Blocher had designed to go just to limit tolerable under Switzerland's law against racism. Blocher's party won a few percent in the elections and is now backed by about one third of the electorate, but the major effect of these elections is a polarization in Switzerland's politics that is quite contrary to the traditional Swiss value of compromise. Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf and SVP members from her canton were excluded from the SVP, they and other moderate SVP members founded a new party named Bürgerlich Demokratische Partei (BDP).

Switzerland's President

Switzerland does not have a full-time president; the representational functions of a president are taken over by one (or all) of the government members. Every year another member of the government team is elected federal president in turn so that every government member assumes this role once in seven years. The president is primus inter pares [first among equals] with very limited special powers: he/she sets the agenda of the weekly conferences and leads the discussion, addresses the population on 1st of January, 1st of August (National Holiday) and similar occasions and represents Switzerland on some international conferences. Often the government is represented by one or two other members, however, depending on the focus. Official foreign guests are usually welcomed by the government in corpore (all members).

In 2010 Switzerland's president was Doris Leuthard (now retired), in 2011 Micheline Calmy-Rey (now retired), in 2012 Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf (now retired), in 2013 Ueli Maurer, in 2014 Didier Burkhalter (now retired), in 2015 Simonetta Sommaruga in 2016 Johann Schneider-Ammann (now retired) in 2017 Doris Leuthard (now retired), in 2018 Alain Berset, in 2019 Ueli Maurer.

Direct Democracy: Referendum and Initiative

• Frequent referendums on new or changed laws, budgets etc,
  - some of them mandatory
  - others "facultative" (only if 50,000 citizens demand for it)
• Ordinary citizens may propose changes to the constitution ("initiative"), if they can find a number of supporters (100,000 out of about 3,500,000 voters). Parliament will discuss it, probably propose an alternative and afterwards all citizens may decide in a referendum whether to accept the initiative, the alternate proposal or stay without change

While the federal system can be found in many other countries like the U.S.A., Germany, Austria etc., and separation of powers (government, parliament, courts) are common to all democracies (or at least should be), referendums are rare in most other countries. In Switzerland's long tradtion of Direct Democracy, frequent referendums do have a stabilizing influence on parliament and government.

• referendums will increase parties' willingness to compromise (otherwise a defeated party will call for a referendum)
• referendums favour big coalitions (shared power motivates compromise, exclusion from power motivates obstructive referendums)
• referendums increase stability (as extreme laws will be blocked by referendum, parties are less inclined to radical changes in lawmaking and voters are less inclined to call for fundamental changes in elections)
• The two chambers of parliament meet several times annually to sessions of several weeks and between them to preparing meetings of numerous commissions. Being member of parliament is not a full time job in Switzerland, contrary to most other countries today. This means, that Swiss members of parliament are closer to everyday life of their electorate.

Cantonal Constitutions and Administrations

The cantons [member states of the Swiss confederations] are free to organize themselves as long as they do respect each other, the federal constitution and laws and the minorities. All cantons do have their own constitutions, their own governments (usually five members elected by the population) and most of them do have (unicameral) cantonal parliaments.

Given the massive differences in size (smallest canton: 37.2 km², but with a population density of 5866 persons per km², largest canton 7105.9 km² with a population density of only 23 persons per km²) as well as in population (smallest canton: 13,500 inhabitants, biggest canton: 1,126,500 inhabitants) one cannot expect that the same type of organisation fits all. While members of cantonal governments act as heads of big administrative units in large cantons their colleagues in small cantons do have a part-time job only.

Direct Democracy was invented on cantonal grounds and gives even more participation rights to the population than on federal level. For example federal budgets are not subject to referendums, but communal budgets are even subject to mandatory referendums.

Since many fields of modern state activity are left to the cantons by the federal constitution but nevertheless need some standardisation in a time of increased mobility with about one fifth of the populatin working in one canton and dwelling in another canton, the cantonal governments meet to negotiate multi-cantonal agreements. The resulting system must appear to be rather strange to foreigners, but though it is undoubtedly very complicated it does work astonishingly well and even more perfectly than in many other industrialised countries (Swiss people are known to be perfectionists).