In Geneva, the Social Democratic Party is transforming itself into a party of activism.
“Focus, focus”: Cédric Wermuth, Co-President, and Mattea Meyer, Co-President, at the SP party conference in Geneva.
The posters leading to Geneva’s Palexpo site promise the reincarnation of an ancient, hegemonic species. It comes alive again on the posters: “The time of the dinosaurs”. The Social Democratic Party, which was founded in 1888 and is the dinosaur of Switzerland’s left-wing political spectrum, is meeting this Saturday on the same site, just a few halls away.
His reincarnation was to begin in October 2020: Christian Levrat, a member of the Council of States who concentrated the influence of his party in Parliament, was bid farewell as President, while Cédric Wermuth and Mattea Meyer, a member of the National Council and a member of the National Council, who have influenced their party ever since, were welcomed trying to redistribute between parliament and the party base. The question is whether influence is added or lost in this diffusion. In the past cantonal elections, the SP lost regularly.
How does your leadership react to this?
The recent leadership
At its party conference in Geneva, the SP completed its transformation into an activist movement party: the party will receive additional committees, issue commissions, working groups and in the budget for the new year personnel expenses alone will increase by more than one million to four million francs. Mattea Meyer, the co-president, says: “We have many projects. And every franc that we invest in employees generates additional movement.»
At this party congress alone, the SP launched two initiatives, one for daycare centers “for everyone” and one for a climate fund (together with the Greens). The party is involved in two other initiatives. And she also collects signatures for three referendums. It’s not easy to keep track. In the «NZZ on Sunday» Cédric Wermuth said recently: “I tend to want to be there everywhere.” Mattea Meyer replied: “I always say: focus, focus.”
The new SP not only wants voters, but people who will take to the streets for them. He sketched what that could look like “Daily Gazette” on Saturday using the example of the SP of the city of Zurich, perhaps the most influential and style-defining SP in Switzerland: anyone who wants to run for the municipal council there must sign an agreement “to actively help” in the election campaign and undertake to achieve a minimum number of so-called activity points . The organization of an aperitif gives six points, three telephone campaigns give nine points.
The President of the SP of the city of Zurich is Oliver Heimgartner, 26 years old, a former Young Socialist. He is a prototypical leader of his party.
The party congress of the SP actually took place digitally, only the leadership of the party met at the venue in Geneva. What was on display was probably the youngest party elite in Swiss history, a former class of Young Socialists. Mattea Meyer and Cédric Wermuth sat in the front row of tables, along with a few others like Samira Marti, David Roth and Jon Pult. In the other parties you are still learning at this age, in the SP you are already leading at this age. The faction leader Roger Nordmann, 48 years old, looked like he was from another time.
Initiatives for everyone
In terms of content, the Wermuth-Meyer generation is trying to transform the recipes of the older generations – in order to also take these members, some of them slightly irritated by so much activism, with them. The keyword is “public service”. And the word has meanwhile become so established in the party that Federal Councilor Simonetta Sommaruga even recommended the new media law with it in her message. Just as there are buses and trains to all remote areas, there should also be media everywhere – as if the media were state-related companies.
The new SP’s public service means: initiatives for everyone. There should be day-care centers for the youngest and middle generation, children and parents. For the older generation, the grandparents, no plans to save for retirement. And a fund for the climate. Above all, by preventing the increase in the retirement age for women and using the National Bank profits for the AHV, the SP could move almost all of its members: young feminists as well as old class warriors.
Anyone who makes big promises for everyone raises big expectations. Even in your own party. In Geneva, the general secretary of the SP turned to his president at some point, just as the message of greeting from the successful comrades in Portugal had just been played: “That’s a good transition to Cédric, who can say how we’ll succeed in 2023.”
Cédric Wermuth grimaced slightly in distress. The next federal elections are in 2023.