Switzerland, where four political parties have divided up a consensual executive amongst themselves by a fixed quota from 1959 till 2003, and with only one minor adjustment in that latter year, has seen some high drama and “dissensus” this week.
As noted in The Independent, Christoph Blocher of the nationalist Swiss Peoples party (SVP) was ousted from the cabinet by a deal struck by the other parties as the Executive Council was being bargained. The SVP won the plurality of the votes in the recent parliamentary elections, with 29%. So, given Switzerland’s consensus model, it is highly unusual that its leader would not be granted a seat, along with one party colleague on the 7-member Council.
But following a late-night plotting session, the SVP’s rivals yesterday proposed a more moderate SVP politician Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf to run against Mr Blocher [in the formal vote taken in parliament].
The SVP responded by announcing it will go into opposition.
Widmer-Schlumpf will remain in the Council, but the IHT reports that “the party promptly withdrew its support from her and another Federal Council member from her party, Samuel Schmid, leaving two of the cabinet’s seven members without a parliamentary base.”
Switzerland, unique in Europe1, does not have a cabinet dependent on parliamentary confidence. Rather, the parliament elects the Executive Council to a fixed term. Thus the Swiss form of government is neither parliamentary nor presidential (nor semi-presidential).
This is certainly a new phase in Swiss politics, and a highly significant one for comparative politics, given the centrality of the Swiss “Magic Formula” of power sharing to the literature on consociational democracy.
And, just to continue the Swiss status as being “unusual” among the democracies, it will now be one of the very rare cases in which the largest party in parliament will be in opposition2. Something to watch…
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What system did Switzerland had before the magic formula in 1959? Why was this strange system chosen? Couldn’t it have developed a parliamentary system?
Parliamentary would be better because at least the Swiss Peoples People could not have share power without responsiblity. They is no way they could have formed government in a parliamentary system without allies. It appears they can’t be a part of government without allies.
Obviously it is an end to the magic formula of consensus. At least there is a change of government instead of the boring stale 4 party coalition. Who wants that? So is it now a three party coalition?
Seed planted by Suaprazzodi — 15 December 2007 @ 04:43
The formal rules–parliament selecting a fixed-term executive council–go back quite far in Swiss constitutional history. The current constitution is based on the 1874 document, although there was a major revision (Totalrevision) in 1998-99.
The ‘Magic Formula’ is, of course, informal. I will leave it to someone more knowledgeable about Swiss political history to comment on how parliament and its parties constituted the Federal Council before 1959.
Seed planted by MSS — 16 December 2007 @ 18:17
Good summary at Wikipa[e]dia, and also in Andrew McLaren Carstairs’ book.
Formally, each of the seven Cabinet posts is filled by separate majority (exhaustive-runoff) ballot of a joint sitting of the two Houses.
Originally, when the Confederation was reconstituted and centralised after the Protestant Cantons won the Civil War of 1848, the majority party (usually a Protestant-secular alliance) played majoritarian hardball and elected its own people to all seven positions. But in 1891 they started trying to co-opt Conservative/ Catholic members (I’m thinking of Norman Mineta http://tinyurl.com/emysc ).
(Interestingly, when the Australian Labor Party was formed in 1891, there was much interest in the Swiss system of elective Cabinets and many [l]abo[u]r criticisms of proposed Australian federation drafts demanded Ministers be elected by Parliament rather than appointed by the Crown. The ALP continued this system, as I’ve noted, of the Caucus electing the Cabinet or shadow Cabinet, at least until recent leaders, notably Kevin Rudd, criticised it for ensuring factional quotas of under-performers on the front-bench).
Then, after the social[ist] [democratic] party emerged and won seats, it demanded Cabinet representation as well, and the “bourgeois” parties eventually conceded it a grudging 1 out of 7.
Gradually, over time, the number of minority/ “opposition” [sic] party Ministers grew until it reached (d’Hondt) proportionality in 1959.
By interesting coincidence, Switzerland and the US are rare examples where the body that chooses the executive government is weighted, by States/ Cantons, for their seats in both Houses. Curiously, too, the ratio is nearly exactly the same between “seats divided equally among States/ Cantons” and “seats apportioned by population” – 200:46 for the Swiss Federal Assembly (4.3478:1) and 436:102 for the US Electoral College (counting DC as having two “Senatorial” Electors).
Christoph Blocher may wish to reflect on the fate of Mr Albert “Pat” Field http://tinyurl.com/2gyrkb and the footprint he left http://tinyurl.com/27hwtm on Australian constitutional law and practice.
Seed planted by Tom Round — 16 December 2007 @ 20:09
BTW, I note that whereas earlier [semi-] proportional executive power-sharing arrangements were informal (Switzerland and Lebanon), in more recent decades they have come to be entrenched in law (South Africa post 1994 and Lebanon since the Taif Accord).
Seed planted by Tom Round — 16 December 2007 @ 20:21
I don’t know how rare it is for the largest party to be in opposition, but that was the case in Ontario in 1985 to 1987. And there had been no pre-election alliance either.
It was also the case in Canada for eight months after the election of October 29, 1925, until the government fell June 25, 1926.
Seed planted by Wilfred Day — 17 December 2007 @ 08:04
About 8% of non-presidential cases since 1990 have seen the largest party in opposition (in a post-electoral government; pre-election coalitions are different). Could be higher as one goes farther back, but probably always pretty unusual.
(This is from a reliable political science source, via private e-mail.)
Seed planted by MSS — 20 December 2007 @ 19:57