Politics

[Dude]

Sounds extremely unnecessary

[Tobbeh99]

Sounds extremely unnecessary

Probably some old election that nobody have cared to abolish. Like "let's just leave it there. If you want to vote/cares for the church then fine. If not, then -who cares".



I took a look at the Swedish parties facebook-pages to get a glimpse of which one I seem to think is the best, by just the appearance of them. And here is what I found:


Left Party: Cares about the healthcare and more about the healthcare, and some economic equality.
The Environmental Party: Oh, it's green again rather than rainbow-colored, ...or at least I think it is. And it no longer has a hawkish cold leadership... And cares about "average person environmental issues"... oh it is as it use to be, just more boring... and just sucks...
The Socialist Party: I wonder how many times they used the word "equality". ...like I care about that... Also had some fancy poster about taking care about the lower-class people and workers (shows how much they really care about workers and lower-class people). And also had one where they show that they care about companies (Oh so they're both workers party and company party. Actually more like: "It's good to ave a company. And it's even better if the state owns the company (hehehe xD)".
---------------------------------------------------------------------------The Left-Right block-line--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Center Party: Cares about the companies, small companies and also the environment, the countryside and some other stuff. Really a mixed-bag party.
The Liberal Party: (With bold leader-esque tone) "The School, the school. Law and order". A lot comes from the party's leader having a solid "straight-shooter" leadership. Both The Center Party and The Liberal Party are pretty similar politically, but their image shows a very stark difference: The Center Party is the "soft and nice party" while The Liberal Party is the "Hard and straight to the point" party. Also almost ironical how both parties literally confirm gender stereotypes as The Center Party's leader is a woman and The Liberal Party's leader is a man.
The Christian Democrats: The "Nice and small flower at the window-shelf"-party. Like cares a lot about elderly/retired people and the medic care. But the thing is that they're such a small party barely getting over the 4% bar (which is needed to get into the government). And it probably has to do with the timidness at the party and it's similarity with the big right party "the moderates".
The Moderates: Really the firm conservative party that cares about: Law and order, immigration (the immigration problem), against begging on the street, entrepreneurship, free will (to choose school and etc.). Also really demonizes allowances like "Oh you get free money by not working. That's wrong! You shouldn't be able to get any crops if you don't sow any.". So sort of a "police party" if you want to see it that way. Also seem to have some ideological struggle and just struggle in general; as the party has lost support and it's placing as 2nd biggest party (after The Socialist Party) and having a struggle inside the party between liberals and conservative. They also are going to get a new party leader, as the previous failed. And he has a challenge to bring the party together which he seemed to care for talking in a tv-interview about that liberalism and conservatism is "combination" that works really well.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------Other parties that doesn't have a clear "alliance" or cooperation with other parties------------------------------------
The Sweden Democrats: Only actually cares about 1 single issues: Immigration problems. Every post were literally about how migrants get allowances from the state, and how wrong that is. And also always put in cheesy romanticizing words about "Swedishness, Swedish culture, our heritage and etc.". And you still get some "nazi-vibes" from the party even though they've tried to clean up the party for like ...10 years or so (when they got over the 4% bar).


To me, it becomes clear that I'd either vote on The Moderates or The Christian Democrats in next election, if it remains as it is. Like the farther you go to the left, the more silly and stupid it seem to get. The things that I care about in the left (socialism) are: The idea of economic equality/the workers movement (so that company bosses don't becomes like "kings". And having the worker feel a sense of pride for what they work with like: I'm a proud [insert title here].), the "collective society" (that people are together as a society and not just individuals living their own life 1 by 1. The "United we stand, divided we fall" idea.). That is probably what made Sweden such a great socialistic country and why they ruled all the way from the 40-50s. But now they just seem so lame and boring, so I basically switched side as the Liberal-Conservative seem to actually make some sense. 

[Trasdegi]

Grrrr, I was typing this super-long post, I went to check some info and when I came back the page refreshed and I lost everything... So here it is, all retyped again:


There is two things you need to know before I start:
#1: I'm from Switzerland
#2: Politics here are kinda... Complicated

So before I get to what's happening now (especially tomorrow), here's some explanation about how it works here:

-There are 26 cantons in Switzerland, like there is 50 states in the US.
-The Federal Assembly is Switzerland's federal legislature. It has two chambers: the National Council and the Council of States, which are elected by the people every four years.
-The National Council has 200 members who represent the Swiss people. The greater a canton's population, the more representatives it has in the National Council, mostly like the House of Representatives in the US.
-The Council of States has 46 members who represent the cantons. Each canton has two representatives, except the former half-cantons (cantons who split up), which have only one representative. It's like the Senate in the US.
-The Federal Council is Switzerland's executive power. It's made up of seven members, each of which heads a government department. Decisions are made jointly. Each year, two of them are elected as the President and the Vice-president, however, there's a convention: the Federal Council member who has not been Federal President for the longest becomes President. Note than the president isn't the head of state and is considered as 'first among equals'.

And now it gets tricky: the Federate Council and the president/Vice President aren't elected by the people, but by the federate assembly. This means that people never vote for the president, and therefore it's not hard to find someone who don't even know who is the president now. And the fact than it changes every year of course doesn't help.

Now here's what's happening tomorrow: one Federal councillor (Didier Burkhalter) resigned, taking effect at the end of October. So tomorrow morning the two chambers will go together in the same room and will vote for a new member. There's another convention here: the new member is always from the same party as the member who leaves, because somehow the parties found a repartition of the 7 people than they all agreed with. However, it already happened than other parties make an alliance to eject a party or because they find all their candidates bad, and in this case it even happens than they elect someone who wasn't a candidate!

There's 3 "big" candidates (I say big because literally everyone can be a candidate if they want to) all from the same party.

-Ignazio Cassis, from the canton of Tessin. His main arguments are than he comes from the Italian-speaking part of the country (because we have 4 official languages in Switzerland) which have had no one in the Federal council in the last 19 years and than his canton must deal with specific problems (immigration, cross-border workers...).
-Isabelle Moret, from the canton of Vaud. One of her main plus than she's a woman and there is only 2/7 now, on of her main minus is than there's already a councillor from the same canton.
-Pierre Maudet, from the canton of Geneva, probably not know enough in the German speaking part of the country, but he has a solid experience in executives.


So I don't know if I explained this well, but explaining all this in English can be a little complicated...

I think it's by far my longest post ever on here

[Dudeman]

Australia was weird enough, but now I'm starting to doubt Switzerland's existence too


On a serious note though, that's actually really interesting. Now, if the president isn't the head of state, what exactly makes them special? Formality?

[Trasdegi]

He (in 2017: she) presides the seances of the Federal council, and have a big role in diplomacy, besides that he does a 1st of January speech, a National day speech, and other things like that. So it's more an honorific job than what people usually think of what a president do.

[Dudeman]

Well, it must be a little irritating not having direct say in who constitutes your highest level of government. At best you're voting people into your Councils and hoping that they're good enough to end up there someday.

[Latios212]

Well, it must be a little irritating not having direct say in who constitutes your highest level of government.

Heh....

[Trasdegi]

Well, it must be a little irritating not having direct say in who constitutes your highest level of government. At best you're voting people into your Councils and hoping that they're good enough to end up there someday.

Yes, but every canton have their own laws, constitution, parliament and government, and we can elect those. And there's many things than are done mostly by cantons, such as education, transportation, culture, police, firefighters...

And there's one big thing too: for every law voted by the national council and the council of states, if you can find 50'000 signatures (in the next 100 days) of people who disagree with their decision, then the people vote about this law, and that's how we happen to vote, like 3-4 times a year, and only for laws. And everyone can submit a new law too, but in this case you have to find 100'000 signatures in 18 months.

[mikey]

He (in 2017: she) presides the seances of the Federal council

Switzerland speaks with the dead?

[SlowPokemon]

I'm about 150 pages into Hillary Rodham Clinton's new book

It's surprisingly a fun read for me

[Trasdegi]

We just got results, without much surprise, Ignazio Cassis got elected.

Switzerland speaks with the dead?

Yes with the grammar and the wording, I killed them

[Tobbeh99]

Is it true that Switzerland have direct democracy?

I'm about 150 pages into Hillary Rodham Clinton's new book

It's surprisingly a fun read for me

I read a bit in Trump's "Art of the Deal", but got bored after a while as it seemed to just be a autobiography more or the less. The 2nd chapter was kind of cool as it kind of tells you the "secrets" (according to him) in making a good deal/being successful. But y, seems a lot like an autobiography that maybe teaches you how to become a successful businessman.


Also the new leader (it's not confirmed but it's pretty obvious who it is) of The Moderate party seems just more legit, the more I see and hear from him. He radiate a sense of calm, trustworthiness and intelligence. I think he can overcome the challenges the party is facing: Get back the vote support, heal and cement the center-right alliance, challenge the left-socialist block for the election next year. And if they do this, the support for the radical Sweden-democrats will probably shrink. And hopefully we'll have a new center-right government next year. It's literally 2 flies in 1 hit.

[Tobbeh99]

Sry for double-post (but seems like I care so much about this topic, and was the only one posting in it).

Really been some drama here in Sweden recently. Usually the whole Scandinavia is pretty calm place, but recently there's been some military issues. We had a big defense exercise with other NATO-countries and neighbor countries. And it's so comical because first of they're doing an exercise and against Russi.. I meant "Land A" (definetly not Russia... just have the borders as it...). And secondly, Russia also did an exercise shortly after ours. And the big thing/question seems to be "Who controls The Baltic Sea?". No country really does control it, but you get the feeling that some countries are stretching their arms trying to fully grasp it. Going back in history, at one time we (Sweden) almost own the entire sea at the "era of great power". But obviously that's history. The current issue seems to be the "NATO vs Russia (and allies)" thing. And that is more complicated for us (Sweden) and also Finland. Because were both neutral when it comes to military alliances (at least "tries to be neutral"). But then you also have former Soviet countries (the Baltic countries) who has joined both the EU and NATO, so clearly has switched side. And then Russia also has a smal portion of land that borders the sea. So no-one really "owns" it by any means. NATO and the EU seem to have the most influence over it. But I'm more concerned about there being a sort of "battle" over it in the first place, as I said earlier that this part of the world is usually relatively calm. I mean if you're from the US you probably care less about there being a military exercise as the US has been/is still the "world police". But living in the world's most peaceful place, it does concern me a bit. But hopefully it'll return back to a more stable and calm situation in the future. 

[Trasdegi]

Is it true that Switzerland have direct democracy?

Yes! As I said earlier, everyone can write a law, and if he can get enough signatures, then the law is voted by the people. Same when the parliament makes a law, if enough people disagree, they can collect signatures and if they get enough then the people votes the law. So we vote on a dozen of laws every years. For example, we will soon vote for or against a reform of the retirement system, and about putting the alimentary security principle in the constitution.

[Pianist Da Sootopolis]

Hillary's book blamed a lot of people Bernie, Comey, Obama.. Sorry, not a fan.