In all likelihood, the Schwyz cantonal government will remain a purely civil affair. In the by-elections, the SVP defended its seat with Xaver Schuler. For the first time, the parties had to disclose their campaign donations.
New in the Schwyz government: Xaver Schuler (SVP) was the only candidate to win the first ballot.
The SVP remains represented with three seats in the Schwyz cantonal government. In the by-election for the two vacant seats, the SVP candidate Xaver Schuler was the only one to achieve an absolute majority in the first ballot. However, the result was extremely close; Schuler received 17,083 votes, the absolute majority was 17,080.
The FDP failed to defend its seat at the first attempt. Her candidate Damian Meier came in second, a good 400 votes behind Schuler. Behind him are the Green Liberals Ursula Lindauer and the Social Democrat Patrick Notter, each with a clear gap of around 4000 votes.
The independent Peter Abegg and Jürg Rückmar from the Aufrecht Schwyz movement had no chance. The defeat is particularly bitter for the Corona protest movement: Rückmar did not even get 3000 votes and was even well behind the Rothenthurm farmer Abegg. The latter had already run for the government council in 2020 and enjoys a certain notoriety as a stone tosser.
Cravings in various camps
The FDP candidate Meier is thus in the best starting position for the second ballot on November 27 of all those who were not elected. At least the SP should have calculated better chances. The Social Democrats saw their hour come to break the bourgeois dominance in the Schwyz government and win a seat for the first time in ten years.
In the cantonal elections in 2020, the SP had achieved a share of 17 percent of the voters, which means that it would be entitled to a seat in the executive branch in purely mathematical terms. With a voter share of 5 percent, the Green Liberals, who form the smallest parliamentary group in Schwyz, are clearly removed from the SP brand. But executive elections are personal elections, heads are sometimes more important than party colors. In addition, women are clearly underrepresented in the Schwyz government; Petra Steimen-Rickenbacher (FDP) is currently the only woman on the seven-member board.
It was a welcome invitation for speculation and political dreams of all kinds when two long-standing members of the Schwyz government council announced their resignation in the spring. In April, the finance director Kaspar Michel (FDP) announced his resignation, who after twelve years in office would switch to the private sector.
In May, economics director Andreas Barraud (SVP) followed, with fourteen years in office one of the veterans of the Schwyz government. Barraud justified his retirement, among other things, with his age – in November he will be 65 years old. “The closer you get to retirement age, the more likely you are to think about retiring,” he told the “Luzerner Zeitung” in May.
The announcements surprised everyone. Not even the respective parties had previously been privy to the intentions of their members of the government. The SVP would have welcomed it if Barraud had stayed in office at least until the end of the legislature in spring 2023.
For the first time with transparency rules
Either way, these by-elections mark a turning point: the Transparency Act was applied for the first time. The law requires candidates to declare their professional and political interests before the election. In addition, the candidates had to disclose their budgets and all major donations for the election campaigns – for the first time ever in an executive election at cantonal level.
Switzerland’s first transparency law was a surprise coup by the Young Socialists. With a yes vote of just 50.28 percent, the people of Schwyz accepted a popular initiative by Juso in March 2018, which demands extensive disclosure requirements for the financing of parties and campaign committees. At that time, the Juso in the canton of Friborg also celebrated a victory with a popular initiative with the same objective on the same day. In February 2020, the people of Schaffhausen approved a transparency initiative.
However, the first practical test in the canton of Schwyz hardly made any waves. Rather, it turned out that the sums for cantonal election campaigns are quite unspectacular on the one hand – and on the other hand the ranking and budget size do not have to be identical. If the budget had gone, the Freisinnigen would have had to get the seat, right in front of the SP. The SVP, on the other hand, should have been content with third place.