The Swiss People’s party (SVP) looks set to strengthen its position even further as the largest political force in parliament.
The right-wing populist party which has been campaigning against mass migration and ‘woke madness’ has topped the early results in the Swiss general election on Sunday.
The SVP was on track to receive 29% of the vote, an increase of nearly 3.5 percentage points over its 2019 results, pollsters GFS Bern predicted, with more than half of the results in.
SVP president Marco Chiesa told national broadcaster RTS: “We have received a very clear mandate from the Swiss population to put on the table issues which matter to them, such as illegal immigration”
The Mail Online reports: The SVP came far ahead of the left-wing Social Democrats on 18 per cent, while the centre-right party The Centre, and the right-wing party called FDP.The Liberals, were both on course to finish on around 15 per cent – with all three chasing parties largely flatlining.
Meanwhile the Greens could not replicate their dramatic gains at the last election in 2019 and slid back four percentage points to finish fifth on nine per cent, according to the projection.
‘It will be more difficult to fight for the cost of living, equality and climate policy,’ re-elected Social Democrat co-president Cedric Wermuth said as the results came in.
Switzerland, a wealthy European country of 8.8 million people, voted for all 200 seats in the National Council lower house of parliament and all 46 in the Council of States upper chamber.
The SVP’s election campaign focused on its favourite theme: the fight against ‘mass immigration’ and the prospect of the Swiss population reaching 10 million.
Its ‘New normal?’ social media adverts, spotlighting crimes perpetrated by foreigners, plunged into a world of bloodied knives, hooded criminals, fists, bruised faces and frightened women.
It also launched a war on ‘cancel culture’ and what it calls ‘gender terror and woke madness’.
‘The situation in Switzerland is serious: we have mass immigration, we have big problems with people seeking asylum. The security situation is no longer the same as before,’ Thomas Aeschi, head of the SVP parliamentary group, said.
‘There are many people in Switzerland who fear the situation will get worse.