Thu, Nov 2nd 2023
About 60 percent of the National Councilors elected in the 2023 national elections bring a communal political background to the Federal House. Of the 119 elected, 34 are currently also politically active at the municipal level, the Swiss Association of Municipalities (SGV) announced Friday last week.
This number, the SGV said, will increase again after the second rounds of elections for the Council of States. The municipalities are therefore the “strongest faction in Federal Bern”. In the past legislative period from 2019 to 2023, 25 National Councilors were simultaneously involved in a municipal executive or legislature – significantly fewer than this year.
In the new legislative period, Zurich as the most populous canton with 21 people provides the National Council delegation with the greatest municipal experience, as the SGV further announced. This is followed by the canton of Vaud with 18 and the canton of Bern with 16 people. In Ticino, five of the eight members of the National Council are active as municipal councillors, while two others previously held a militia office at municipal level.
In general, it is also noticeable that the path to the Federal Parliament, especially in Latin Switzerland, leads primarily via the municipalities: Around 80 percent of all parliamentarians in French-speaking Switzerland and Ticino hold or hold office at the municipal level. In German-speaking Switzerland, too, those National Council members with municipal experience make up the majority at 52 percent, according to the SGV.
One reason for the large number of politicians with municipal backgrounds from Latin Switzerland is the much broader municipal parliaments in French-speaking Switzerland. This automatically leads to more people having political experience at the local level, says political scientist Adrian Vatter of the University of Bern, according to the communiqué.
Vatter also has the impression that there are fewer political career changers in French-speaking Switzerland than in the urban centers of German-speaking Switzerland.
©Keystone/SDA
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