Let's Talk Politics, Part 1: Why is the SVP so popular?

After reading several articles, commentaries and blog posts about the current SVP initiative and what it means for Switzerland, I felt I wanted to add my 2 cents as well.

Disclaimer: I'm writing most of this from memory, if I get facts wrong, please correct me, I'd really appreciate it.

First of all the question, how is it that the SVP has become so popular in Switzerland?

There are a couple of traits that characterized Switzerland through most of the 20th century and that the Swiss people identified with strongly: independence, neutrality, individual responsibility, a liberal economic policy ("Weniger Staat - mehr Freiheit").

By the 1990s the political climate had changed considerably, the social-democratic party was one of the strongest political forces and the other parties had definitely moved their positions to the political left, at least to a certain extent (mainly regarding government payments for various interest groups).

Then in 1992 a referendum was held on the question whether or not Switzerland should become a member of the EEA (European Economic Area). Most major parties (FDP, CVP, SP) were in favour, it seemed like a done deal.

This was the moment Christoph Blocher emerged from the SVP, up to that point mainly known as a "farmer's party" and started questioning joining the EEA on the grounds of Swiss neutrality and independence. Being the only major voice criticizing an EEA-membership, he was sure to get a lot of attention and he garnered a major victory for the SVP: Switzerland did not join the EEA, the Swiss people had voted against it.

As far as I know this marked the beginning of a pattern where all major parties agreed on something and the SVP was the only party to go against it, citing sometimes reasonable and sometimes very polemic reasons (with campaign posters to match!) but always having Swiss neutrality and independence somewhere in there; a concept which is near and dear to most Swiss.

Personally, I blame the other parties for the SVP's success. Because some of the issues that the SVP was the only party to broach, were major issues most people were aware of, such as failed integration of foreigners or exploitation of social security. All other parties had a policy of "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" on all these problems, claiming that they didn't even exist.

Now, most people in their everyday life were confronted with these issues and had most politicians basically claiming that they were seeing ghosts. Considering this, I am absolutely not surprised by the SVP's ongoing success - they were the only ones assuring people that yes, the problems they were seeing were actually there and had to be dealt with.

But I think most people would agree with me that a party with nationalist tendencies on the right end of the political spectrum is probably not the ideal party to "deal with it". So in my opinion the social-democratic party has made major errors in judgment about the topics they do or do not want to discuss. Want to protect immigrants? Distinguish them from the minority of criminial immigrants and make sure the latter get punished for discrediting all the others. Want to protect and extend social security? Make sure it's not exploited, so the people who really need it can benefit for generations to come, without the money running out.

The attitude of the other government parties is starting to change, they are obviously starting to realize that a lot of issues can no longer be ignored. I'd say it's about time and probably the only way to curb the SVP's success.