History of the Solothurn party system
The history of the party system does not describe the history of individual parties, but rather the history of the cooperation between these parties in the various constitutional bodies.
Milestones
After the liberal revolution of 1830, the canton of Solothurn was largely a two-party state in the course of the 19th century with liberals (today's FDP Kanton Solothurn ) and Catholic-Democratic conservatives (today's CVP ). The liberals dominated the state with absolute majorities in all bodies, although there were temporarily additional divisions between old liberals (the so- called "gray") and the radical liberals (the so-called "red").
Towards the end of the 19th century, those parties were formally founded that still determine political life today. The introduction of the proportional representation system for the cantonal council in 1895 also had a major influence on the political process , which allowed the conservatives to increase their seat share and the Social Democratic Party (SP) to take a seat in the cantonal parliament. However, the so-called Solothurn proportionality was deliberately designed in such a way that it continued to secure a great deal of influence for the liberal mind. The proportion of votes cast only allowed variegation , but not cumulation . On the one hand, it could be variegated without negatively affecting the distribution of mandates for one's own list. On the other hand, it was not possible for the voters to give additional support with cumulative exponents of their own color. The "free panaschieren" was used by the free-thinking majority party in some virtuoso manner to put more acceptable candidates on the lists of the two minority parties, while prominent representatives of the Social Democrats and the Conservatives had to fear repeatedly for their re-election. There was also the fact that only lists were included in the distribution of mandates that had achieved at least one full mandate, which was an additional hurdle in constituencies with few mandates. The peculiarities of the Solothurn proportional representation were probably also a decisive reason for the fact that a 3-party system, which was atypical for a canton in the Swiss Central Plateau, with brief interruptions well into the second half of the 20th century, had survived.
In 1911 the SP immediately won two seats in the National Council, and in 1917 the absolute FDP dominance in the Cantonal Council was broken. This exclusively in favor of additional SP mandates: The party benefited from the shortage of food and supplies that had arisen across the country as a result of the First World War . She also received her first government council mandate.
The first breakthrough of the three-party system established in 1917 took place in 1941 when the Duttweiler -Partei Landesring der Independents won 11 cantonal seats , all of which were lost after a legislative period.
In 1943 an SP representative was elected to the Council of States, making the previous two-person delegation of the Solothurn FDP in the small chamber of the past.
In 1945 the Social Democrats won 9 seats despite the reduction in the total number of seats in the Cantonal Council and became the second largest parliamentary group for the first time and for more than a quarter of a century with 40 seats versus 34 in the Conservatives. The Bernese district of Bucheggberg appointed a representative of the farmers, trade and citizens' party BGB (forerunner of today's SVP) for the first time and only for this one legislature.
In 1952, the election of a second SP representative (along with a conservative) succeeded in breaking the absolute free-thinking majority in the government council. As an aftermath of the Kulturkampf in the 19th century, there was no civic bloc in the canton of Solothurn. This was a prerequisite for an alliance of convenience between Social Democrats and Conservatives to break up the free-thinking government majority. The electoral alliance of the two minority parties, branded by the liberal as an "unholy alliance", had the ultimate goal of putting an end to the personnel policy in the administration, which was subordinated to the liberal majority. Attempts by the liberals in 1953 and 1963 to regain the government majority failed.
In 1969 the Landesring regained its place in the cantonal parliament after 24 years with 6 seats. 3 of the 6 seat wins were at the expense of the Social Democrats, who thus lost their status as the second largest parliamentary group and only had 36 seats like the Conservatives.
In 1973 the number of seats in the LdU melted down to one mandate. The Progressive Organizations (POCH) won a mandate for the first time.
From the 1990s onwards, the relatively traditional three-party state of Solothurn was finally a thing of the past , mainly due to the resolute emergence of the SVP (and, more moderately, the Green Party ).
In 2007 the liberals, who once supported the state, won only one of seven seats in the National Council for the first time.
Tendencies
The share of the votes of the SP Canton of Solothurn has always been in a range between 23 and 30% since 1917, with highs between 1945 and 1965. Even in a period of high mobilization potential from the industrial workers, the bourgeois parties succeeded by means of strong leftists Party wing to keep a significant proportion of this electorate away from the SP. On the other hand, after the shift of jobs from the industrial to the service sector from around the 1970s onwards, the SP was still largely able to maintain its previous share of the vote. The SVP's forerunner party, the BGB , was never able to gain a foothold in the canton of Solothurn, for analogous reasons with the opposite sign: strong peasant-commercial party wings of the established bourgeois popular parties.
swell
- Arthur Häfliger: Political Science Canton Solothurn
- Office for Finance: The Canton of Solothurn in figures, various issues
- Walter Kräuchi: Departure in a better time