Jet d'eau, Geneva
Update 10:15 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Canton Geneva elected its new 100-strong Grand Conseil, or parliament, Sunday and voters approved a multi-party mix that sees the power of the Socialists waning and a stronger centre-right. Geneva has long had a centre-left leaning. The biggest winner was the centre-right MCG, Mouvement Citoyens Genevois, which nearly doubled the number of seats it holds, to 17.
Media in French-speaking Switzerland are putting the accent on the populist nature of the party, pointing to its strongly anti-frontalier (workers who cross the border) platform. Le Temps notes that the party has taken advantage of a chink, growing concerns along the border about security and jobs, where many thought it did not have the strength.
The largest party remains the Liberals, also centre-right, with 20 seats. The Greens gained one seat for a total of 17. The Socialists lost two seats and now have 15. Parties on the right lost seats: the PDC and Radicals each lost one and the UDC People’s Party lost two.
The Grand Conseil is elected every four years.
This work by genevalunch.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported.
News story, GenevaLunch, 12 October 2009.
Filed under: Politics
Tags: canton, elections, Geneva, Grand Conseil, Parliament
October 13th, 2009 at 9:53 am
[...] Background:“Geneva’s political landscape changes: left weaker, centre-right strengthened“, 12 October 2009, GenevaLunch Posted by :: Sean Ecker on 13 October 2009 at 9:53 | permalink Post Comment [...]