I don't know anything about Swiss politics, but "rightwing" political parties in Europe are generally about as conservative as our Democrats.
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/ap/ap_story.html/Intl/AP.V1059.AP-Switzerland-Ele.html;COXnetJSessionID=1TXlkWmLnM2NA7JIwYBBPk8OWQO1wVlWu3T2VzQeyb26TlkaaViG!446400454?urac=n&urvf=10666208378330.1634697430098644 Nationalist Party Gains in Switzerland
By ALEXANDER G. HIGGINS
Associated Press Writer
GENEVA (AP)--The nationalist Swiss People's Party won the highest share of votes in parliamentary elections Sunday, state-owned Swiss television projected, after running a campaign that accused the government of being soft on crime and immigration.
If confirmed, the results could give the party a stronger voice in the seven-member Cabinet, which for decades has been delicately balanced between the Alpine country's four main parties.
Since 1959, the Cabinet has been divvied up with two seats each for the left-of-center Social Democrats and two other parties--and one seat for the Swiss People's Party.
After the projections from Sunday's voting, the head of the People's Party demanded his party be elevated to two seats and one of the other parties knocked down to one. ``There's no longer any doubt,'' Ueli Maurer said.
The two-chamber National Assembly elected Sunday, including the 200-seat National Council and the 46-seat Council of States, will determine the makeup of the Cabinet Dec. 7.
The Swiss People's Party has been gaining strength in recent years, warning that cherished Swiss values of independence and neutrality are being lost and evoking a supposed golden age when Switzerland had less crime and fewer foreigners. Full-page newspaper ads by the party last week said, ``Certain ethnic groups dominate the criminal statistics,'' noting that rapes in Switzerland had risen by 70 percent and murders by 32 percent in recent years.
In Sunday's voting, the Swiss People's Party gained 11 seats in the National Council, the 200-seat lower house of parliament. That brings its total to 55, one more than the Social Democrats, the previous ruling party, which gained three seats in the voting.
The other two coalition partners--centrist and right of center _ each lost seats. The Radical Democrats lost six seats to stand at 37, while the Christian Democrats lost nine seats to 26.
The Greens--who currently are not in the Cabinet--also picked up four seats in the National Council, bringing them to 13.
Greens' Copresident Ruth Genner rejected the People's Party's claim to another cabinet seat and said, ``It's time for the party to be removed completely from the cabinet.''
The projected 27.7 percent of the vote won by the People's Party was the best showing by a Swiss party in 70 years. The Social Democrats received a projected 24.2 percent, a gain of 1.7 percent on its top rank in 1999.
The centrist parties in the coalition suffered losses. The Radical Democrats were in third place with a projected 16 percent, down from 19.9 percent four years ago. The Christian Democrats were in fourth with 12.9 percent, down from 15.9 percent.
Turnout in Swiss elections has been under 50 percent since the 1970s. It was 43.3 percent four years ago. The projections said 42.5 percent of the 4.7 million eligible Swiss voters participated in Sunday's balloting for the two-chamber National Assembly, which also includes the 46-seat Council of States.
The People's Party on Friday was rebuked by the United Nations refugee agency, which said it had placed ``some of the most nakedly anti-asylum advertisements by a major political party that we've seen in Europe to date.''
Ron Redmond, chief spokesman of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said the party's advertisements used ``tricks'' typical of the ``the anti-asylum lobby,'' such as ``placing the word 'asylum-seeker' systematically and repeatedly in close conjunction with words such as 'terrorist,' 'criminal,' 'rape,' 'disease,' 'fraud,' 'bogus' and so on.''
Another advertisement claimed the other three parties were responsible for the demise of treasured Swiss attributes such as independence, direct democracy, security and banking secrecy.
Switzerland hosted many of the refugees from former Yugoslavia during the 1990s, and attempts to curb the number of asylum seekers has been a continuing theme as it has been in some other European countries.
But opinion surveys indicated that many Swiss voters are now more concerned about the sluggish economy, rising health insurance costs and moves to cut Swiss pensions and postpone retirement age for social security.
In the 1995 elections, the People's Party was still the smallest coalition partner, but it has made sizable gains in recent years.
The party opposed Switzerland's becoming a member of the United Nations and has rejected desires by other coalition parties to join the European Union. In the late 1990s, it accused the Swiss government of caving in to Jewish organizations seeking compensation from Swiss banks for families of Holocaust victims.
AP-NY-10-19-03 1840EDT
Good, hold on to it. We must keep chipping away to win our freedoms back.
Go SWISS!
I bet the staff at the Guardian is upset.