Turnout: 48.40%
About this election
The Swiss federal election of 18 October 2015 produced a clear shift to the right — the "Rechtsrutsch" — and the strongest result any party had recorded in modern Swiss history. The national-conservative Swiss People's Party (SVP/UDC) won 29.43% of the vote and 65 of the 200 seats in the National Council, a gain of eleven, while the free-market FDP.The Liberals advanced to 16.39% and 33 seats. Together the two right-of-centre parties secured a working majority in the lower house. The Social Democrats (SP/PS) held second place with 18.86% and 43 seats, the Christian Democrats (CVP) took 11.61% and 27, and the big losers were the Greens, who fell to 7.06% and 11 seats. Turnout was 48.4%.
Switzerland's parliament, the Federal Assembly, is bicameral. The 200-member National Council (Nationalrat) represents the people and is elected every four years; each of the 26 cantons forms a single constituency, with seats apportioned by population. The twenty larger cantons use open-list proportional representation (the Hagenbach-Bischoff method, with no legal threshold), allowing voters to split their vote across party lists (panachage) and cumulate votes for individual candidates; the six smallest cantons each return a single member by first-past-the-post. The 46-member Council of States (Ständerat), the cantonal chamber, is elected separately under cantonal rules, mostly by majority vote. This page shows the National Council result, the proportional contest that best captures national party strength.
The dominant theme was the European migration crisis of 2015, which the SVP placed at the centre of its campaign with warnings about asylum numbers and the free movement of people, building on its 2014 referendum success on "mass immigration". The strong franc and its impact on exporters, relations with the European Union, and the implementation of that 2014 vote were also prominent. The SVP's disciplined, well-funded campaign mobilised its base and drew support from the smaller right-wing parties that had splintered after 2007.
The SVP's 29.43% was the highest share won by any Swiss party since the introduction of proportional representation in 1919. The Conservative Democratic Party (BDP), which had broken from the SVP in 2008, fell back to 4.11% and 7 seats, and the Green Liberals (GLP) to 4.63% and 7. The combined SVP–FDP bloc of 98 seats, with informal support from smaller right parties, gave the right its strongest National Council position in decades, even as the Council of States remained more centrist.
Switzerland is not governed by a parliamentary majority but by the seven-member Federal Council, a permanent grand coalition filled according to the informal "magic formula" that distributes seats among the largest parties. The 2015 result allowed the SVP to reclaim a second Federal Council seat, lost in 2008, when the assembly elected Guy Parmelin in December 2015 — restoring the 2-2-2-1 balance among the SVP, FDP, SP and CVP. The election thus reinforced Switzerland's consensus model even as it recorded a sharp partisan swing, and it set the agenda on immigration and Europe for the legislature that followed.
Swiss Federal Statistical Office (BFS/OFS) — bfs.admin.ch.
Compiled and reviewed by Bartłomiej Paruzel, Election Data Analyst, from official results. See our data methodology.