• Tweeter

  • republish

Students during a march for the climate on January 18, 2019 in Lausanne. Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP

According to the latest polls, all parties should lose votes except the Greens who could even enter the executive, after the federal election this Sunday, October 20. This near-historic success is driven by the recent climate marches. Opposite, the populist right should remain largely majority in the Swiss Parliament.

With our correspondent in Geneva, Jérémie Lanche

As a former politician of Swiss politics, Green MP Robert Cramer remains cautious about the success predicted on his side. " The triumph that we are prophesying is almost to return to our electoral forces twelve years ago, " he says.

The Greens, however, should achieve their highest score in the Swiss Parliament after the federal election of 20 October. " This climate emergency is felt every day ," says Delphine Klopfenstein, candidate for the Greens in Geneva. Even here in Switzerland, one feels it with scorching summers, with landslides in the Alps. We see that this is a real phenomenon that worries more and more people. And it is true that the general climate is rather favorable to a notorious green push this Sunday [20 October] ".

Preserving nature, "a form of patriotism"

Opposite, the nationalist right of the SVP (Democratic Union of the center) already takes note of the ecological push. The first party in Switzerland is one of the few that has not developed a real discourse on the environment, or seen through the lens of immigration.

" The preservation of nature is a form of patriotism ," says Yves Nidegger . We just have another recipe . We consider that the impact on the environment is still terribly dependent on the number of human beings in relation to the number of square meters. Therefore, immigration and its mastery is the most obvious policy .

For the first time, the Greens have in any case a real chance of joining the national unity government that brings together the main political parties in the country. It would be a small revolution, in a country not used to political earthquakes.

► (Re) listen to the international report: Switzerland: youth demonstration for the climate