Anyone who is “SME-friendly” votes as the Swiss trade association would – she is convinced of that. On Thursday, he published his “SME rating” for the fourth time since 2011. It ranks politicians according to how they voted since the last election.
Spicy: Ironically, their own chairman, middle national councilor Fabio Regazzi (60), is performing very poorly. He only finishes in 85th place on the leaderboard!
How you get involved is more important
When asked, Regazzi reminds that rankings are never objective. Depending on the selection of the parameters, the results can be very different. Much more important is how you actually get involved. And: “I don’t think anyone can seriously doubt my commitment to SMEs in Switzerland,” says Regazzi.
But he is also a member of a party. There are always party interests to consider when voting. He’s not thrilled about this result, but he doesn’t think it’s bad either: “In the end, I’m glad I did the best of my game.”
Points, not ranking
“For us, the ranking is not decisive”, commercial director Hans-Ulrich Bigler (64, SVP) puts it in perspective. Rather, the decisive factor is the index rating – ie how many points someone gets.
And since Regazzi comes to more than 40 points. According to the mathematical formula underlying the whole thing, this means that he sided with trade with more than two-thirds of the vote. “For us, politicians are SME-friendly from this threshold,” says Bigler. Regazzi, however, only just reaches 40 points.
SVP is catching up – coincidence?
Incidentally, the picture has been more or less the same since 2011: we always find the same names at the top. As parties, the SVP and FDP clearly led the rating.
Striking: While all the top ten places in the 2019 ranking were occupied by FDP members, there are now five SVP members in the front rows. Which led some MPs to make sharp remarks – namely whether it was a coincidence that Bigler, who is responsible for the rankings, switched from the FDP to the SVP between the two surveys.
Followers have an advantage
Leaders in the National Council are Daniel Ruch (59, FDP) in first place and Benjamin Fischer (31, SVP) in second place. Both have risen since the last election. The fact that two newcomers are at the top of the list is due to the ranking method. Those who deviate from the position of the trade association will be punished disproportionately in the ranking. But those moving up have missed certain votes.
If you only look at politicians who participated in more than 80 percent of the vote, Lucerne is Peter peeler (63, FDP) and Thomas van Schaffhausen Hurter (59, SVP) in the first two places. But as it stands, they occupy ranks three and four. National Councilman Roger ranks fifth coop (57) another SVP representative.
In the Council of States, SVP chairman Marco Chiesa (48) wins the race, followed by all other five SVP representatives. Martin Schmid (53), an FDP member, only came in 7th place.
Middle only moderate
The center performs rather mediocre: Regazzi ranks 85th as the most SME-friendly of the parliamentary group in the National Council, followed by the Basel bidder Elisabeth Schneider-Schneiter (58), head of the Basel Chamber of Commerce. Center boss Gerhard Pfister (60) even missed the top 100 in place 104. Things are looking a bit better in the Council of States: the center is participating from place 13.
Leftists, Greens – not even Green Liberals – have nothing to say in the rankings. According to the trade association’s criteria, no one is “SME-friendly”. Alderman Céline Widmer (44) was the best placed GLP participant with a 103rd place. Representatives of the Greens and the SP can be found for the first time with Gerhard Andrey (46) and Nadine Masshardt (38) in 132nd and 133rd place.