Center further expands its supremacy in the Council of States
Published: Sunday, Nov 19th 2023, 15:20
Updated At: Monday, Nov 20th 2023, 00:59
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The center has expanded its supremacy in the Council of States. The SVP not only lost its seat in Aargau, but also failed with its candidates in the cantons of Zurich, where the GLP took one seat from the conservatives, and Solothurn. SVP President Marco Chiesa was re-elected. The SP gained two seats.
The new Council of States is thus composed as follows: The center has the strongest representation with 15 seats (2019: 13). The FDP is in second place with eleven seats (2019: 12), ahead of the SP with nine seats (unchanged) and the SVP with six seats (unchanged).
The Greens still hold three seats in the small chamber compared to five four years ago. The Green Liberal Party (GLP) and the MCG (Mouvement citoyens genevois) are once again represented in the Council of States. The independent Thomas Minder was not re-elected.
GLP wins seat in Zurich Council of States
The conservative camp loses a seat in the canton of Zurich. GLP National Councillor Tiana Angelina Moser makes the leap into the Council of States. According to the final result, the 44-year-old clearly leaves SVP National Councillor Gregor Rutz behind in the second round of voting.
Moser received 206,493 votes and Rutz 159,328 votes, according to the Zurich cantonal statistics office. The election of the GLP candidate is a bitter defeat for the conservative camp in the canton of Zurich. SP Councillor of States Daniel Jositsch had already won re-election in the first round of voting.
The second seat, which became vacant following the resignation of Ruedi Noser (FDP), remained unfilled on October 22. The FDP had withdrawn its candidate from the race in order to join forces in the conservative camp for the second round of voting. Although their National Councillor Regine Sauter had achieved more votes than Moser, she was clearly behind Rutz.
SVP loses seat in Aargau
In the canton of Aargau, National Councillor Marianne Binder-Keller has won another seat in the Council of States for the Center Party after 28 years. This means that the SVP, the party with the most voters in Aargau, has lost its seat. FDP President Thierry Burkart had already been elected in the first round of voting.
Binder-Keller received 84,431 votes and Giezendanner 79,429 votes. The 65-year-old Binder-Keller is also president of the cantonal party.
The 41-year-old Giezendanner, entrepreneur and president of the cantonal trade association, achieved the best result of the non-elected candidates in the first round of voting. Four years ago, the SVP won a seat in the Council of States. His father, Ulrich Giezendanner, had already tried to retain the seat in the Council of States for the SVP in 2011.
SP defends seat in the canton of Solothurn
National Councillor Franziska Roth (SP) has won the battle for the second seat in the Council of States in Solothurn. The 57-year-old can therefore succeed Roberto Zanetti (SP). She left her rival Christian Imark (SVP) well behind.
Roth was supported by a cross-party committee of the SP, GLP and Greens and won 43,668 votes. Imark was clearly behind her with 35,904 votes. The 41-year-old was supported by the FDP. The SVP has so far failed in several attempts to win a seat in the Solothurn Council of States or cantonal government.
With Roth's election, the seats in the Solothurn Council of States will remain in the hands of the SP and the center (formerly CVP), as has been the case since 2011. Pirmin Bischof (center) was confirmed as the incumbent by a large margin in the first round of voting.
Minder misses re-election in Schaffhausen
For the first time since 1991, the canton of Schaffhausen is sending an SP representative to the Council of States in Bern. Simon Stocker won the seat of non-party member Thomas Minder in the second round of voting. Hannes Germann (SVP) was elected in the first round of voting.
Stocker received 15,769 votes, while Minder received 13,504 votes, according to the Schaffhausen State Chancellery. Stocker is 42 years old and most recently worked as an independent expert on ageing. He was a member of the Schaffhausen City Council from 2013 to 2020. Minder, 62, is the initiator of the "rip-off" initiative and was elected to the Council of States in 2011.
SVP President in Ticino re-elected
Fabio Regazzi (center), centrist National Councillor and President of the Swiss Trade Association, has been elected to the Council of States for Ticino. The only previous member of the Council of States from Ticino, Marco Chiesa (SVP), was confirmed in the second round of voting on Sunday.
SVP President Chiesa received 40,549 votes, Regazzi 31,962 votes. FDP National Councillor Alex Farinelli received only 2406 votes less. Green Greta Gysin, who tried to defend the seat of Marina Carobbio (SP) for the left, received 27,606 votes. Amalia Mirante from the new Ticino movement "Avanti con Ticino & Lavoro" received 19,527 votes.
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