GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The large multi-party centre is gaining ground in Switzerland, to the detriment of the main parties, early results from Sunday’s election for members of parliament seem to show.
Four of the governing parties, the right-wing UDC People’s Party and the centre-right PLR (Liberaux Radicaux), as well as the Christian Democrats (centre) and leftist Greens appear to be losing ground to two of the country’s new parties, the right and centre right environmental groups Vert Lib and PBD.
Swiss public broadcasting (SSR) stations, which track the parliamentary elections closely, provided their first projections at 19:00. Swiss polls closed earlier in the day and official results are generally released after midnight. Unofficial results are in for 23 of the 26 cantons, with intermediate results for Geneva, Vaud, and Zurich at 20:30. Only slightly more than half of the seats for the upper house were known.
Geneva‘s intermediate results show only a minor shift, with the Greens and Socialists each losing a seat in the lower house, but with centre left and environmentalists gaining the seats. Upper house: Liliane Maury Pasquier, Socialist, and Robert Cramer, Greens.
Vaud: Socialists and Greens have gained a seat each at the expense of the Vert’libs and the UDC, in the lower house.
Zurich: Vert’libs and centre-right PDC each gained a seat, with the UDC and centre-right PBD losing one each. Upper house: Verena Diener, Vert’lib and Felix Gutzwiller, PLR – with former UDC leader and federal councillor Christoph Blocher in third place for the two seats.
The map of voting, canton by canton, and all results are on TSR in French.
Fast Impressions takes into consideration your age, profession, personality profile and your stated preferences for those you would like to meet. About 16 people meet through a series of 4-5 minute “dates.”
Three sessions divided by ages: 22-34, 34-45, and 45 and over.
Location: Geneva
Link out: http://www.fastimpressions.ch
Start date: 12 Sep 2011
Start time: 19:30
End date: 20 Sep 2011
End time: 22:00
Italy’s Berlusconi in court circus is under way, with one of the four court cases in which he is a defendant opening, then adjourning today, the first in what is widely expected to be a series of legal maneuvers. The BBC reports that about 20,000 pages will be reviewed as part of the case where the Italian prime minister is accused of having sex with an under-age prostitute. He is charged with corruption in one of the other cases; he denies both charges and has said they are politically motivated.
Links to other sites: BBC, Los Angeles Times
LA Times video
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The time has arrived for the annual Christmas party reminder: don’t drive if you plan to drink. The limit in Switzerland is 0.5 per 1,000, which means about one glass of wine. That said, Christmas parties, at the office or elsewhere, often catch people by surprise, and if you have one too many, consider phoning Nez Rouge to have someone come and drive you home in your own car. The Geneva area service also covers neighbouring France.
The holiday season service starts this weekend, with drivers on call 11 and 12 December, and then throughout the holidays but with dates and times varying slightly from one region to another.
