Final ballots will be collected Sunday morning after the vast majority of Swiss made their choices by mail-in voting. Up for grabs are both houses of parliament.
The vote could be a bellwether about how another set of Europeans is thinking about right-wing populist politics and the need to spend money and resources to fight global warming at a time of rising inflation that has pinched many pocketbooks — even in well-to-do Switzerland. Berset, a Socialist, will be succeeded next year by centrist Viola Amherd. The four biggest parties are represented on the council, and they are the right-wing Swiss People’s Party, the Socialists, the free-market Liberals — each with two seats — and the Center party, with one.
And if the Center party outscores the free-market Liberals, they could swipe one of the Liberals' two seats on the council. More broadly, Switzerland has found itself straddling two core elements to its psyche: Western democratic principles like those in the European Union – which Switzerland has refused to join — and its much vaunted “neutrality” in world affairs.