The Young Socialists are dissatisfied and raise their finger: against the SP and its Bundesrat candidates.
The Juso held their DV in the former barracks in Basel. She used the place to protest against “militarism”.
They wave red flags, hold up banners and raise their left fists in the air. The delegates of the Young Socialists held their assembly of delegates on Saturday in the barracks in Basel. At times in the old barracks courtyard, where they wanted to use the symbolic effect of the place. An action against militarism.
Meanwhile, the two SP Federal Council candidates Eva Herzog and Elisabeth Baume-Schneider are sitting in the conference room. Both seek power in the most powerful office that Switzerland has. Now they’re making small talk. Soon they have to face the questions of the Juso here on the podium.
Left Dissonances
The Juso is the most influential young party in Switzerland. Again and again, she causes discussions with radical demands and generates media attention. Important figures in the SP have been politicized in the Juso, for example the current leadership duo Meyer-Wermuth. The Juso are for the SP squad factory and at the same time the connection to the street.
They gather militant left forces, speak loudly of revolution, the exploitative bourgeois state. They organize protest actions and thus involve forces that might otherwise take different directions.
The Young Socialists are both a party and a social movement. They say things that SP politicians don’t dare to say. And they make demands.
There are two resolutions to be voted on at this DM. A first call for the SP to resign from the state government if there are not three left-wing people in the government after the next general elections in the Federal Council. A counter-resolution by the Juso-St. Gallen are even demanding immediate resignation from the government.
In the end, the Young Socialists decide on the resolution of their management: three left-wing federal councilors after the next elections or the opposition.
“Elisabeth, why don’t you want to make any more revolutions?”
A hearing with the two Federal Council candidates Eva Herzog and Elisabeth Baume-Schneider took place beforehand. Evi Allemann was absent.
The delegates asked Herzog and Baume-Schneider about the principle of collegiality, about dealing with civil disobedience and about the attitude towards sanctions against the Iranian regime.
The two candidates were largely in agreement. Both said they would not break the principle of collegiality. Herzog said it more clearly than Baume-Schneider. Then came two questions about Corporate Tax Reform III.
Herzog campaigned for their adoption in 2017. That was not well received by the Juso. The next question went to Baume-Schneider. At a young age she was involved in a Marxist group.
Baume-Schneider said she didn’t want to make any more revolutions today. Question from a Juso delegate: “Elisabeth, why don’t you want to make a revolution anymore?”
The two candidates were both government councillors, then they switched to the middle-class dominated Council of States. They are more familiar with compromises and concessions than fundamental ideological debates. But now they are sitting here with the Juso, where people still address each other as comrades and where self-made banners are hanging on the walls.
A signal to the SP
The question of the opposition was not spared the two candidates. Eva Herzog said that she sees no advantage in the SP leaving the Bundesrat. The Swiss system is not a two-party system, but designed to involve the forces.
Elisabeth Baume-Schneider shared this conviction and pointed out that social democrats can certainly introduce new perspectives in a predominantly conservative government. Left voices are needed on the street and left voices in government. Baume-Schneider described the opposition resolution as a risk.
Juso President Nicolas Siegrist sees it differently. He says they want to launch a debate, which is not happening at the moment. “In its history, the SP has repeatedly discussed the question of government participation.” Siegrist refers to the late SP President Helmut Hubacher, who also raised this question.
What Siegrist doesn’t say: With its resolution, the Juso raises the admonishing finger against the SP.
For him and Juso, the question is how the party deals with its federal councillors. He wants to make them more responsible in the interests of fairer politics.
When the comrades sing the Internationale at the end of the meeting, Eva Herzog and Elisabeth Baume-Schneider are long gone.