Analysis: Switzerland in turmoil

BERLIN, Oct. 16 (UPI) -- A Swiss far-right party has launched an unprecedented media campaign that plays on xenophobic images, shocking and at the same time fascinating voters in the consensus-dominated country.

Bern’s medieval center with its 15th century Gothic cathedral and the Zytglogge, an elaborate medieval clock tower with moving puppets, has earned the city the title of a UNESCO Cultural World Heritage Site. Yet on Oct. 7, the sights were easily overlooked, as it looked a bit like civil war in Bern: Amid burning barricades, a black-clad mob was hurling stones at police, who answered fiercely with water cannons and tear gas. At the end of the day, police arrested 41 people, with 21 injured.

The incident underscores why the Swiss political campaign -- one that in previous years was hardly noticed by foreign media -- made it onto the front page of The New York Times (for the first time since 1994), drew harsh criticism by commentators across Europe and even resulted in a warning from an anti-racism official at the United Nations: Sleepy Switzerland, it seems, is at the brink of political turmoil.

The root of that turmoil -- and the black-clad mob’s main target of aggression -- is the populist right-wing SVP party, since 2003 the strongest group in Swiss politics, and since this week Europe’s strongest rightist party.

The SVP has swept Switzerland -- a country used to a tradition of neutrality, cool-headed topical debates and consensus rather than conflict -- with an unprecedented media campaign ahead of its Oct. 21 parliamentary elections. One of the SVP’s many controversial posters depicts three white sheep grazing on a Swiss flag, as one of them kicks a single black sheep away. “To Create Security,” the poster reads. That campaign will give the SVP its best result ever, between 27 percent and 28 percent, latest polls say -- far ahead of any other party in Switzerland.

The SVP argues that a disproportionately large number of criminals in Switzerland are foreign-born, and that those troublemakers -- together with their families -- should be sent back to where they came from. A country with high wages and relatively little unemployment (3.3 percent), Switzerland has average crime per capita rates less than the United States or Germany, but more than Ireland or Greece, according to the United Nations.

A party film nevertheless shows foreigners beating up young Swiss boys, kids injecting heroin and Muslims sitting around doing nothing, followed by the logos of Swiss multinational companies, nice-looking business men in suits and pretty images of the Swiss Alps. The choice is clear: "My home, our security," the party film states.

The SVP’s agenda isn’t new: In 2004 it blocked a move to liberalize the citizenship process (it takes 12 years before a foreigner living in the country can become Swiss) using the image of dark-skinned hands grabbing a Swiss passport. Yet it is the unprecedented fierceness and rawness of this year’s parliamentary campaign, the us-versus-them mentality that has shocked many observers.

"No other party has dared to lead such a populist campaign," Hans Hirter, political scientist from Bern University, told United Press International in a telephone interview.

Together with the beefed-up deporting policy, the SVP also campaigns for lower taxes and political interference in business, more respect for the country’s armed forces and in favor of a glorification of everything that is deeply Swiss: That’s why an SVP rally is also a conglomeration of alp-horns, cowbells and living farm animals. The undisputed star of each rally, however, is one man: multibillionaire entrepreneur-turned Justice Minister Christoph Blocher, who, some say, is the SVP.

One of 11 children from a conservative preacher’s family and since his acquisition and successful management of a chemical company among the world’s 400 richest people, Blocher has long influenced Swiss politics. He has fought for one of Europe’s toughest immigration laws and was the main engineer behind the opposition to join the EU's economic and monetary union.

"Blocher speaks like a man behind a bar, ending each of his sentences with a punch on the counter," Hirter said. "The rallies and the entire campaign are part of a for Switzerland totally untypical personality cult. But some elderly people adore him like some Brits adore the Queen."

The SVP knows this and has engineered a set of conspiracy theories surrounding Blocher, arguing that the other parties are trying everything to get the man ousted. "Vote SVP -- Strengthen Blocher," the party’s strategy says.

So far, the strategy has worked splendidly, but Hirter said the cap for Blocher and his SVP stands at 30 percent of the vote. "Significantly more is unrealistic."

And even if that hurdle should fall -- Blocher is only one individual in a government Cabinet of seven (with a maximum of two SVP politicians) that takes decisions together and hardly can be dominated by one politician. Moreover, because of Switzerland’s tradition of direct democracy, the most controversial issues are still decided by the people in referendums.

Even as he has the popularity, Blocher -- and some left-wing experts say this with a sigh of relief -- can’t really turn into a Swiss Joerg Haider, whose right-wing extremist Freedom Party for two years governed Austria in a coalition that drew heavy fire from abroad. So when the campaign is over, Switzerland will likely return to normal, vanishing from the front pages for another decade or so.