Party leader Gerhard Pfister is heading for a sensation: the center is catching up with the FDP

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The center, led by Gerhard Pfister (60), is faced with a sensation: for the first time in the history of the modern federal state, the successor of the Catholic Conservatives, who opposed the new federal state in 1848, would be the Liberal Party can overtake. founder of the liberal state.

The middle, which is merged from the CVP and the BDP, is rising in the latest SRG election barometer and now stands at 14.8 percent. This puts it just ahead of the FDP with 14.6 percent in favor of voters.

The new label apparently allows the Mitte party to appeal to new groups of voters. If the upward trend continues until election day on October 22, it will be third behind SVP (27.6 percent) and SP (17.3 percent).

In the tightest election result to date, the then predecessor party trailed the FDP by 0.1 percentage points – that was in 1955. But now the center could push the liberals off the podium in the jubilee year of all time – “175 years of the Federal Constitution” – and in the historic rivalry between conservatives and liberals who rise to the top for the first time.

Exciting head-to-head race

For FDP president Thierry Burkart (48), who actually wanted to drive the SP from second place with a daring declaration of war, this would be a debacle. No wonder he recently showed his combativeness on the day of the FDP in Freiburg. He remains optimistic about Blick: “It will be an exciting head-to-head race and I’m looking forward to it,” he responds to the research results. “For us there is a huge motivation boost to defend our place against the centre.”

After the debacle surrounding Credit Suisse put the brakes on the liberals, they want to score points in the last weeks of the election campaign with their regulations for a safe power supply or a budget health insurer in the healthcare sector. With her proposals for migration policy, she also tries to limit the losses towards the SVP.

Pfister welcomes ‘spirit of optimism’

Mitte boss Gerhard Pfister, meanwhile, shows restraint. “Like all research results, this result should not be overestimated,” he says. In the end, only the election results of 22 October count. Nevertheless, he is happy with the “spirit of optimism” currently prevailing in his party.

Nevertheless, the question arises whether the FDP will have to give up its second seat in the Federal Council if it is pushed to fourth place. But Burkart needn’t worry for now: the middle is taking itself out of the race. “As long as the distance between us and the FDP is so small, our claim for a second seat in the Bundesrat is not credible,” Pfister said. However, today’s magic formula no longer works. “Only the election results will show how the magic formula should evolve.”

The GLP also loses for the first time

Compared to the last election barometer, there is also movement in the biological camp. With 10.7 percent, the Greens remain on the losing side and have to give up 2.5 percentage points. But recently, the Green Liberals have also lost half a percentage point. They still amount to 7.3 percent.

The data for the SRG Election Barometer was collected online between 8 and 22 June 2023 through the Sotomo panel and SRG online channels. The results are based on 25,216 valid votes and are representative of the active voting population in Switzerland. The sampling error is +/- 1.2 percentage points.

Source:Blick