Center-President Pfister: “Blocher has blown up the citizens’ bloc”
Published: Tuesday, Nov 21st 2023, 08:10
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After the elections, the SVP and FDP want to strengthen cooperation between the bourgeois parties. Center Party President Gerhard Pfister thinks little of it. There is no longer a solid citizens' bloc. The SVP's mastermind Christoph Blocher has blown this up by positioning himself as a right-wing protest party.
Before Blocher, the SVP was a pragmatic party, not unlike his own, the then CVP, said Zug National Councillor Pfister in an interview with the "Neue Zürcher Zeitung" on Tuesday. The SVP and CVP saw themselves as part of an alliance that was mostly led by the FDP and business associations against the left-wing parties.
This bourgeois bloc no longer exists. Anyone who talks about a bourgeois camp is ignoring the political reality. It is remarkable that the SVP complains the loudest that these times are over. "Yet it was their mastermind Christoph Blocher who blew up the bourgeois bloc," said Pfister.
By transforming itself into a protest party, the SVP had "set itself apart from the other parties with all its sharpness and toughness", which had paid off for it. Now, however, she expects everyone to submit to her, "that we swallow all insults and stand loyally by her side".
A large part of the base of his centrist party wants nothing to do with the SVP. According to Pfister, this applies to decency and style, content and attitude towards the institutions. The parties would work together if there were overlaps. This must happen on an equal footing.
But that has nothing to do with a bourgeois bloc. We have to say goodbye to this idea. "We are witnessing the emergence of a system with three poles. On the right the SVP and the FDP, on the left the SP and the Greens, and in between a center around the center party," said Pfister.
The fact that the FDP speaks of a liberal pole is their decision. The same applies to the business associations, which supported the SVP in the Council of States elections in several cantons - mostly unsuccessfully. This raises the question of whether the business community really wants a solution with the EU.
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