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Very few observers expected this before the Vaud State Council elections: the five candidates from the FDP, the SVP and the Mitte party are all in the top seven places after the first ballot. This “Alliance Vaudoise” is the first broad alliance on the civil side in 20 years. And it seems to be working.
Nothing has been won after the election Sunday. Only FDP State Councilor Christelle Luisier managed to get re-elected in the first ballot by a hair’s breadth. Everyone else has to go to the second ballot. So did the candidates of the SP and the Greens, who fell behind in the first ballot.
Lots of room for improvement for the 2nd ballot
Two of the three previous SP state councilors were in fourth and fifth place. On the other hand, the previous Director of Education, Cesla Amarelle (SP), only managed eighth place, behind all candidates from the “Alliance Vaudoise”. Vassilis Venizelos, who is tasked with defending the Greens’ seat in government, only came in ninth.
Nevertheless, the bourgeois alliance does not yet have victory in the dry. The gaps between places six to nine are small. And turnout was only 34.25 percent – five years ago it was significantly higher at 40.13 percent. So there is a lot of room for improvement on both sides to mobilize the voters for the second ballot.
Signal effect on western Switzerland?
Alliances on the civil side are likely to remain on the political agenda in western Switzerland. The SVP, FDP and the center had already won the elections in the canton of Friborg because they had joined forces for the second ballot. That was one of the reasons for the bourgeoisie in Vaud to enter into an alliance. Now the good result in the first round of voting in Vaud is arousing desires in other cantons.
She wants to forge such an alliance in Geneva as soon as possible, said SVP national councilor Celine Amaudruz in the election center in Lausanne. The board of directors of the Geneva FDP had already spoken out in favor of a broad alliance. In the last elections in Geneva, only the CVP and the FDP worked together. Should the Waadtländer Bürgerliche be able to repeat their election victory in the second ballot, that would have a signal effect beyond the largest canton – to the whole of western Switzerland.