The first projection of the national election result by the projections07.ch team has been published at 7 pm tonight. Results:

The SVP wins 2.2 percent and 6 seats
The SP loses 4.2 percent and 9 seats
The FDP loses 1.4 percent and 5 seats
The CVP wins 0.2 percent and 3 seats
The Green Party wins 1.8 percent and 4 seats
The Green Liberal Party wins 2.0 percent and 3 seats

As I said, this is a projection, not the final result.

But how do we interpret this so far?

If you look at the red-green camp as consisting only of the Green Party and the SP, it is on the losing side. The SP loses more seats and votes than the Green Party wins.

If you look at the conservative parties, the SVP, the nationalist party, is the clear winner, whereas the FDP, the centre-right liberal party, is the loser.

Does this mean that there has been a shift to the right in Swiss politics with today’s elections?

Well, unfortunately, the answer is: it depends.

First of all, even though the CVP has not won a lot of votes according to the projection in terms of percentage, it has won seats. This means, at the moment, it draws level with the FDP, which loses 5 seats (at least if you leave out the Liberal Party).

Secondly, yes, the SVP has won 2.2 percent and six seats, but if you take the two green parties, the Green Party and the Green Liberal party, together, they have won 3.8 percent of the votes and 7 seats.

One of the questions will be what the Green Liberal Party will do: will it support policies coming from the red-green camp, or will it side more with the centre parties?

The way it looks at the moment, it seems there has been a shift away from the left today. However, it is not quite clear yet whether this really constitutes a (strong) shift to the right, since also the centre has been strengthened at least in terms of seats.

The SVP most probably can – at the moment – be considered as the winner of the elections – again. It has reached a percentage that no party has reached since 1919, when the FDP gained 28.8 percent of the votes. Something which the SVP achieved probably also thanks to the recent events in the campaign (e.g. on October 6) that no poll has captured.

As a result, the SVP will consider itself as having been given the authority by the people to advocate their more nationalist, more conservative and more isolationist policies in parliament.

However, this is not a landslide election, and the 28.8 percent or 61 seats that the SVP currently reaches in the projections do not give it a majority in parliament.

What does this mean for the direction in which Swiss politics will go in the next four years?

Probably the government will be composed of the same parties, even though perhaps not the same people. No party will have a majority in parliament, and depending on the issue – environment, social policy, taxes, asylum, integration of foreigners, foreign policy – there will be changing coalitions. If compromise is not reached, there will be referendums, and there will also be initiatives if parliament does not take up urgent issues.

In this regard, it will be the same procedure as every legislative period.