Elections in Vaud – Vaud bans political debates in schools just before elections – News

• Political debates at educational institutions in the canton of Vaud are now banned in the ten weeks before the elections. This was decided by Education Director Frédéric Borloz (FDP).
• This is intended to prevent vote-catching during the election campaign.
• The left is outraged. The right agrees with the decision.

The State Council justified its decision at a meeting of the Grand Council: Debates in schools are important in order to educate young people to become citizens, but they cannot take place at any time, said the FDP State Council.

Borloz continued that debates prior to votes that do not fall within the realm of pure politics are not a problem. However, this does not apply to debates related to elections, where fairness is more difficult to ensure.

resistance from the left

The decision of the director of education provoked outrage among the left. SP President Romain Pilloud explained that adversarial debates, in which all political opinions can be heard, have nothing to do with “propaganda”. “On the contrary, they are invigorating moments that allow young people to engage with civic issues,” he said.

Alice Genoud (Greens) described the decision as an “attack on the freedom” of the schools. Hadrien Buclin (Ensemble à Gauche – POP) spoke of the paternalism of the students, since they were very well able to face contradictory debates.

approval from the right

Several bourgeois deputies supported Borloz’s decision. The SVP politician Celine Baux said that debates during election campaigns were “manipulation” and only served to “put certain personalities in the foreground”. For the liberal François Cardinaux, “school is a place for learning, not for doing politics”.

The left wanted to overturn the decision with a resolution. However, it failed because of the middle-class majority of the Great Council. The text was rejected by 74 votes to 62, with 5 abstentions.