Twenty-First Century Populism: The Spectre of Western European ...

106 Twenty-First Century Populism
Sonderfall, the alleged uniqueness, isolation, prosperity and neutrality of
Switzerland, coupled with a stance vis á vis the EU and other international
institutions and associations that closely resembles that of AUNS. Finally
comes a marked conservatism in social affairs (i.e. law-and-order rhetoric),
alongside the fight for tax cuts and public expenditure reductions (see Betz,
2005).
In terms of its ideology, therefore, the SVP/UDC closely resembles other
right-wing populist formations covered in this volume. Like them, the party
embodies some of contemporary Europe’s most blatant contradictions:
between hyper-modernism on the one hand, and the desire to protect native
‘traditional’ cultures on the other; between the perceived need for immigrant
labour on the one hand, and the schizophrenic desire not to see and
have to deal with foreigners on the other (as the party’s slogan says: ‘yes to
foreign workers, no to immigrants’). The only aspect that partially differentiates
the SVP/UDC from the ‘ideal type’ of populist party defined in the
introduction to this volume is that, despite Blocher having gained a great
reputation within its ranks as leader of the radicalization process, he remains
just one of the party’s leaders. Moreover, there are still two different visions
of the party’s future battling against each other (with the Bernese branch
more moderate and conservative than the now hegemonic Zurich branch).
Unlike Forza Italia in Italy, therefore, the SVP/UDC has never been purely
and simply ‘a personal party’ (Calise, 2000).
The radicalization process has paid dividends in electoral terms, with the
party nearly doubling its national vote share in about ten years, following
sweeping successes in cantonal parliaments. This happened first at the
expense of extreme formations such as the Swiss Democrats, and then other
‘bourgeois’ parties (FDP/PRD and CVP/PDC), while the Social Democrats
(SPS/PSS) and the Greens have also benefited from a climate of increasing
polarization − almost in the style of adversarial democracies. This is an interesting
process in a country where the Left has traditionally been weak. 6
Table 7.1 Federal elections results in Switzerland, 1995–2003
(percentage of valid votes)
Party 1995 1999 2003
SVP/UDC 14.9 22.5 26.7
Soc-Dem (SPS/PSS) 21.8 22.5 23.3
Rad-Lib (FDP/PRD) 20.2 19.9 17.3
Christian-Dem (CVP/PDC) 16.8 15.9 14.4
Greens (GPS/PES) 6.5 5.3 8
Others 19.8 13.9 10.3
Source: The Swiss Statistical office, data quoted in Selb and Lachat (2004: 1).