Here is a summary of the “Swiss Politics for Dummies” evening event held at the Ferme du Manoir in Nyon in January.
This was written by John Tracey who lives in Coinsins and who amongst the audience that night.
“Swiss politics for Dummies”
Does living in and around Nyon engender low self esteem ? How amazing that a hundred of us freely flocked to declare ourselves publicly to be a dummy at this excellent event on January 28th. Reality is that we were all there under false pretences and were very wise to have come out that evening and return home even wiser.
If Swiss Politics doesn’t turn you on, you certainly haven’t heard Jordan Davies’ scintillating synopsis which, in his inimitable light-hearted way, paints a clear – even attractive – picture helping us all make sense of it. You’d immediately recognise Jordan from World Radio Switzerland 101.7 FM. His grasp of international politics and the Swiss structure was as enlightening as entertaining.
Our political system reflects Switzerland’s diversity in language, culture and geography. The basic precepts of the people’s sovereignty, direct democracy and leading by consensus has devolved Swiss political power into today’s three tier structure; Federal, Cantonal and Communal. Each level operates on the same principle of an elected executive, broad-based council and is tempered by the individual authority of the electorate.
Federal Council comprises of Seven members
The Federal Council comprises seven members of equal status who each serve as President for a year on a rotational basis. While this has the advantage of avoiding ‘personality politics’ prevalent in other countries, it can yield slower legislation since the traditional drive is to seek agreement, understand and respect others’ positions. It also fosters a sense of decorum and politeness in government/politics (“being nice to each other !”) – somewhat unusual in modern day democracies…. Interestingly, recent attempts to change (modernise ?) this way of operating failed in favour of retaining fundamental consensus.
The next level of national legislative is the Federal Assembly split into two Chambers, the Council of States and the National Council. A similar structure is found at the cantonal level, with the elected executive State Council and more rank and file Grand Council, and in the communes, the Municipal and Communal Councils.
On this local level, we were treated to an impressive array of councillors encouraging us to feel free to get involved. We enjoyed brief presentations from some of Nyon’s cream originally hailing from New Jersey, Newcastle, the Nederlands and even Nyon. Our entertaining evening culminated in a gracious endorsement of the base message to get integrated and involved from Nyon’s Municipal Councillor Elisabeth Ruey-Ray.
She praised and thanked Catherine Nelson-Pollard for her excellent work in promoting understanding and integration and went on to win unanimous acclamation by pronouncing the much-loved traditional invitation – – “au Carnotzet !”