Swiss politics set to shift to the right

Parties on the political right look like being the winners in October’s parliamentary elections, albeit to a lesser extent than in neighbouring countries, according to the third electoral barometer by the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation (SBC). Switzerland’s largest party has the wind back in its sails. The right-wing Swiss People’s Party has gained 1.5 percentage points since the previous federal elections in 2019, the poll conducted by the Zurich-based Institute for Social and Political Studies (Sotomo) revealed on Wednesday. This would give it 27.1% of the vote on October 22 – the third-best score in its history – and would offset some of the disappointment of 2019, when it lost 3.8 percentage points. Conversely, voters continue to turn away from the left-wing Green Party, which is now polling at 10.2%, three percentage points down on four years ago. “The Greens are losing around half of the gains they made in 2019,” says Sotomo political scientist Sarah Bütikofer. This is...