61340 Vorabseiten_e - Unabhängige Expertenkommission Schweiz

Although the political equality of women had been a subject of discussion in
the general political public since the end of the 19 th century, a breakthrough on
the national level only occurred in 1971.
Whilst Switzerland was strictly broken down within the federalist system into
the Confederation, the cantons and the municipalities, it also possessed a highly
integrated elite on a national level in the economy, the army and politics who
were in a position to absorb new and also oppositional forces. The fact that there
was no independent «military caste», no «political class» and no bureaucratic
rank, owing to the military and also the civilian militia systems, meant that this
elite had the power to assert itself. The forces of liberalism determined the
political landscape of the Swiss Confederation after 1848. After the Kulturkampf
(the cultural war between the Church and the State) had abated, the Catholic
Conservative Party (now the Christian Democratic People’s Party – Christlichdemokratische
Volkspartei der Schweiz, CVP) won their first seat in the sevenmember
government (the Federal Council – Bundesrat). The Catholic Conservative
party won another seat in government in 1919 when the middle-classes
and farmers bloc held its ground against the opposing labour movement during
the First World War and the Landesstreik (General Strike) and a crisis of liberal
authority had become apparent. In 1929, a representative from the conservative
Bauern-, Gewerbe- und Bürgerpartei, BGB (a party consisting of farmers, small
businessmen and middle-class citizens) entered the Federal Council, thus
creating a multiparty government approved by a good 53% of the electorate, to
function as the executive. In 1935, another force opposed the government
coalition along with the left wing parties, namely the «National Ring of
Independents» (Landesring der Unabhängigen, LDU) led by the charismatic
figure of Gottlieb Duttweiler, and which arose as part of the Restoration
Movement invoking highly traditional values. 18
The Social Democrats were regarded at the level of Federal Government as being
opposed to the system during the entire inter-war period, and therefore
unsuitable for government. This was due to their fight for the improvement of
conditions for the socially weaker levels of society and their central claim as sole
representatives of the working classes. However on a cantonal and communal
level, in particular in the «red towns», their «suitability» had long been
proved. 19 Not surprisingly there was no Social Democrat or trade union representation
in any of the economic executive bodies or in the management of any
public institutions. The «Geistige Landesverteidigung» (Intellectual National
Defence) of the 1930s, formed and supported to a great extent by the labour
movement, did not result in any initial moves towards conciliation on the part
of the middle classes. In the four complementary elections in 1940, the Social
Democratic Party’s claim for representation in the government was refused,
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