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

116 Twenty-First Century Populism
on major governing responsibilities, after having contributed to seriously
disrupting previous political equilibria. Then there was proof of growing
resentment vis á vis Europe provided by campaigning organizations.
Processes of personalization of politics and changes in the logic of the
media were also at hand.
Opportunities such as these are not always exploited, however, as Duncan
McDonnell explains in this volume with reference to Ireland. Moreover,
charisma is an increasingly required quality for leadership in mass mediated
democracies (Mény and Surel, 2004: 145). A relaunch of the SVP/UDC −
surviving on somewhere around 12 per cent at the end of the 1980s − and
a ‘conversion to populism’ thus needed to follow the path of charismatic
leadership.
A self-made man personifying the allegedly ‘Swiss’ virtues of determination
and hard work who had managed to become the major shareholder of
the company that had employed him (now Ems-Chemie Holding AG),
Christoph Blocher also had the necessary ability to address people’s concerns
by using simple and media-friendly language. Furthermore, as in the
cases of Silvio Berlusconi in Italy and Giuliano Bignasca in Ticino, Blocher’s
personal wealth was helpfully at hand to fund his ambitions, given that the
SVP/UDC had a history of investing very little in political campaigns
(Kobach, 1993: 127). The great autonomy that cantonal sections of political
parties enjoy was also turned into an advantage as Blocher moved away
from the traditional moderate line of his party embodied by the Bernese
SVP/UDC. At the head of the Zurich branch since 1977, Blocher was able to
build a solid power base in a canton where the far Right had traditionally
been strong (and where certain slogans, therefore, were not perceived as
being as offensive as they would have been elsewhere), attracting increasing
numbers of votes, election-on-election until recently. 8 Under his leadership,
the SVP/UDC of Zurich put considerable effort into improving its communication
strategies and adopting professional marketing techniques, which,
following their success, set an example to the party nationwide. So, if the
party now campaigns to ‘save’ the tradition of running political and administrative
affairs by means of a voluntary ‘militia system’, this has not prevented
it from making sure that its own organization is run more professionally
than in the past, in the context of an overall weak party landscape. Given
the spreading of the Zurich example nationwide among party activists, this
process provides us with an excellent example of how ‘agency’, in turn, does
indeed affect ‘structure’.
Unlike Forza Italia or the Lega Nord in Italy, the SVP/UDC was not born
with its current most influential leader and is surely going to survive him. It
does owe him a great deal, however, and if Blocher falls, the party will
receive a considerable blow. It remains to be seen if other bourgeois political
parties, badly bruised by the last two national elections, will be able to contain
Blocher’s challenge and possibly exploit the SVP/UDC’s contradictions