Elections in Geneva
The Green Liberals out of the game, the centrist parties struggling
The formations of the center were victims of their scattering and undoubtedly of the emergence of the list of Pierre Maudet. Right-wing environmentalists remain on the dock, The Center loses three elected officials.
Published
The Vert’liberals keep smiling: they fail to enter the Grand Council but are making strong progress. In the center, their two candidates for the Council of State Marc Wuarin and Marie-Claude Sawerschel.
Photos Christian BONZON/20Minutes
“The disappointment is immense, concedes Michel Matter, national councilor of the Vert’libéraux. Our progress is enormous, but the door has not opened. The centrist party indeed gained 4.77% compared to 2018, but failed to cross the quorum: with 6.37% of the vote (provisional result), it did not reach the fateful 7%. With this setback, centrist ideas will a priori be little represented in the Grand Council. Indeed, the Center (ex-PDC) is also losing its feathers in the adventure: with 7.77% of the vote (provisional result), it saves the essentials, because it will sit in parliament, but it will find itself with nine deputies only, three less than during the current legislature.
“It’s disappointing to see that we’re going down a bit, reacts its president, Delphine Bachmann. The context was complicated, with the scattering of parties claiming to be centrist. In addition to the Vert’libéraux, Le Center also had to count, according to its deputy Sébastien Desfayes, with “a party that comes out of nowhere, which makes 10% of the vote (note: 8.70% in reality), and which is centrist”, that is to say the movement Freedoms and social justice of Pierre Maudet, which makes a sensational entry to the Grand Council. In this configuration, “getting quorum is an achievement”.
Still, if “the centrist position probably attracts many more voters than a few years ago”, according to Delphine Bachmann, the two traditional parties, hers and the Liberal Greens, will be little or not represented in Geneva. Thus, the co-president of this last formation, Marc Wuarin, declares himself “worried. I see that the moderate positions are decreasing. French-style speeches appeal to Geneva, with a vision of politics where, when you have the majority, you come to crush the other. In the long term, it is deleterious.”
For Delphine Bachmann, “it is disappointing to see that populist arguments carry more weight than reasonable arguments that make it possible to get things done.” But, she judges, “the shock phrases work better in times of crisis”. She thus believes that salvation passes “by putting forward concrete projects”, in particular at the level of the municipalities “or it is going very well”, with several elected magistrates.
The Green Liberals too, who congratulate themselves with Michel Matter on “progress throughout Switzerland”, are betting confidently on the next municipal elections, in two years, to consolidate their position. This rise in power dissuades him, for the moment, from considering a merger or an alliance with Le Centre. Still, a rapprochement is not taboo, at least not for Le Center. “Voices are lost along the way,” says Sébastien Desfayes. You have to ask yourself. Personally, I am in favor of starting discussions.