Switzerland National Council election 2019 — Results

Setting the scene

The Swiss federal election of 20 October 2019 was dominated by a "green wave" (grüne Welle) that reshaped the National Council. The Greens (GPS) surged to 13.24% and 28 seats — a gain of seventeen, the largest single advance by any party in Swiss history — while the Green Liberals (GLP) rose to 7.80% and 16 seats. The Swiss People's Party (SVP/UDC) remained comfortably the largest party but fell back sharply to 25.59% and 53 seats, down twelve, and the other governing parties also lost ground: the Social Democrats took 16.84% and 39 seats, FDP.The Liberals 15.11% and 29, and the Christian Democrats 11.38% and 25. Turnout was 45.1%.

How the voting works

The 200 members of the National Council were elected, as every four years, from the 26 cantons. The twenty larger cantons use open-list proportional representation with panachage and cumulation and no legal threshold; the six smallest each elect a single member by plurality. The cantonal Council of States (46 seats) is elected separately under cantonal rules. Because each canton is a constituency of very unequal size — from Zürich's 35 seats to the single-member cantons — the geography of party strength can be read directly on the canton map. This page presents the National Council result.

The campaign and key issues

Two forces drove the campaign. The first was climate change: 2019 saw the global school-strike movement and large climate demonstrations across Switzerland, and the environment topped voters' concerns for the first time. The second was the women's strike of June 2019, the largest in the country since 1991, which put gender equality and representation at the centre of debate. Both favoured the green and left parties and helped elect a record number of women to parliament — about 42% of the National Council, a historic high.

The result

The two green parties together gained 26 seats, almost entirely at the expense of the established governing parties of right and centre. The Greens overtook the Christian Democrats in vote share to become the country's fourth-largest party, and the combined left-green camp reached its strongest position in decades. The result was widely described as the "climate election" (Klimawahl) and aligned Switzerland with the broader European green surge of 2019.

The Federal Council and aftermath

Despite their breakthrough, the Greens were unable to translate votes into a seat in the seven-member Federal Council. In December 2019 the Green Party challenged the FDP for a government seat but the Federal Assembly declined to alter the "magic formula", and the 2-2-2-1 distribution among the SVP, FDP, SP and CVP was renewed unchanged. The episode highlighted the gap between the National Council's swift electoral shifts and the deliberately stable, consensus-based composition of the Swiss executive.

Data source

Swiss Federal Statistical Office (BFS/OFS) — bfs.admin.ch.

Compiled and reviewed from official results by ElectioMap. See our data methodology.