Geneva elections, Socialists lose seat
Update 15:40 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Cantonal elections in Geneva for the executive council, the Conseil d’état, confirmed a rightward shift in the political mood, Sunday 15 November. The centre-right alliance won four of the seven seats, while the centre-left won three. Two women are on the council, and extremists on either side of the spectrum were eliminated.
On the centre-right: the Radical party’s François Longchamp, Christian Democrat Pierre-François Unger and the Liberal party’s Mark Muller were re-elected. They were joined by newly elected Liberal Isabel Rochat.
On the left: Council president and Green party candidate David Hiler, was overwhelmingly re-elected, with the highest overall number of votes. He is joined by Socialist Charles Beer, re-elected, and newly elected Michèle Kuenzler from the Ecologist party. The Socialists lost one seat on the Conseil d’état when Véronique Puerro lost her bid to be elected.
Leaders of the centre-right “Entente bourgeoise” were especially pleased because they were not forced into an alliance with the right-wing UDC party, the leading party at the national level. And neither of the two extreme-right candidates from Geneva’s MCG party, which did surprisingly well in the parliamentary elections last month, were elected.
The council must now deal with the question of which departments will be headed by which ministers. The most difficult for the moment appears to be the department of public institutions, which includes the police. Laurent Moutinot, Socialist minister who did not run for re-election, has overseen tough salary negotiations and the replacement of the police chief in the past four years, but according to Le Temps, none of the new ministers are keen to take up the post. Moutinot has been sharply criticized for doing little to improve safety in the city, particularly in the Paquis area near the train station, whose inhabitants have called for private security services. Safety was one of the campaign issues in the run-up to the council’s election.
A post-world war record number of eligible Genevans voted, 46.44 percent.
Links to other sites: Geneva election site, Le Temps, TdG
News story, GenevaLunch, 16 November 2009.
Filed under: Politics
Tags: cantonal elections, Christian Democrat Pierre-François Unger, Conseil d'Etat, Entente bourgeoise, Environmentalists, François Longchamp, Geneva, Geneva executive council, geneve, Laurent Moutinot, Liberal party's Mark Muller, MCG, Michèle Kuenzler, Socialists, UDC
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