“You don’t do anything for the climate if you stay on the street”

Blick: Mr Glättli, the Greens were the biggest winners in 2019. According to the election barometer now the hardest to lose. Why is it?

Balthasar Glattli: Hang on, the election barometer says we’d still get the second best result in our history, and we’re still in the big party league at almost 12 percent. As a reminder, a month before the 2019 elections, we were forecast 2.5 percent less than we ultimately earned. I stick to the “polls” that really matter: the elections in the cantons. We are still gaining ground there.

You haven’t answered the question: why are the Greens losing now?
The survey is certainly a wake-up call for us. We must make it clear that the reason for the current energy crisis is that we have not been listened to enough. Today we waste 40 percent of electricity – instead of saving it with current technology. Ambitious climate and energy policies mean greater independence from other countries, from Russian gas and Saudi oil, and thus lower electricity prices. We need to make that clearer.

According to the election barometer, 42 percent of your voters think the Greens are left. Do you have a problem?
What! If it’s left to take the urgency of the climate crisis seriously, then politics probably isn’t left enough. According to the survey, we Greens are the party most often elected out of full conviction and not because people have no alternative. But there are certainly people who vote for us because of our stance on the climate crisis and for whom we are at best too left-wing in other areas. That is why we are going to work on mobilization: you only get green if you vote green!

The climate discussion is currently dominated by Renovate glue activists Switzerland. Do they harm the group – and therefore also the Greens?
It is the other way around: many people think that the climate and biodiversity crises are central to all of us. That could benefit us. After all, you don’t do anything for the climate by staying on the street, you do that by voting.

Apparently many Green voters are returning to the SP. You could not redeem what you promised.
This is our biggest challenge. But I’d rather we lose voters to the SP than to non-voters. Our goal must be for the left-green camp to grow globally. With the SP we therefore strive for list connections in all cantons. I would love it if GLP would join in too.

If the election results also look like the election barometer: do without it by 11.7 percent for a seat in the Federal Council?
Certainly not! It cannot be that a party like the FDP has two seats in the Federal Council with 16 percent and we have none with 12.

But the power cartel you recently denounced has probably been given of this result.
One thing is clear: the distribution of seats in the Federal Council is already completely unfair. On October 22, 2023 we want to increase further – and then we will checkout. We want to take our responsibility in the Bundesrat. Our aim is to become the third strongest force in Parliament.