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55-446: Bachs is first mentioned in 1100 as Fusebach and Fuisipach . In 1384 the village section of Altbachs (Old Bachs) was mentioned as Obern Fisibach . Bachs has an area of 9.1 km (3.5 sq mi). Of this area, 49% is used for agricultural purposes, while 44.1% is forested. Of the rest of the land, 6.8% is settled (buildings or roads) and the remainder (0.1%) is non-productive (rivers, glaciers or mountains). The municipality

110-806: A Federal Councillor led to moderates within the party splitting to form the Conservative Democratic Party (BDP), which later merged with the Christian Democratic People's Party into The Centre . As of 2024 , the party is the largest in the National Council with 62 seats. It has six seats in the Council of States . The early origins of the SVP go back to the late 1910s, when numerous cantonal farmers' parties were founded in agrarian , Protestant , German-speaking parts of Switzerland. While

165-466: A conservative society. It opposes the public financing of maternity leave and nursery schools . In its education policy, it opposes tendencies to shift the responsibility of the upbringing of children from families to public institutions. The party claims an excessive influence of anti-authoritarian ideas originating from the protests of 1968 . In general, the party supports strengthening crime prevention measures against social crimes and, especially in

220-657: A gradual nuclear power phase-out . In 2019, the BDP had one seat in the Council of States , and 3 out of the 200 seats in the National Council . Upon the BDP's founding, seventeen members of the Grand Council of Bern defected from the SVP. In the 2010 election , the number of BDP councillors increased to 25, making the BDP the third-largest party in Bern, behind the SVP and the Social Democratic Party . Having been founded by

275-486: A loss of prosperity in Switzerland due to immigrants. According to the opinion of the party, such benefits amount to waste of taxpayers' money. Numerous SVP members have shown themselves to be critical of Islam by having participated in the minaret controversy , during which they pushed for an initiative to ban the construction of minarets. In November 2009, this ban won the majority vote (57.5%) and became an amendment to

330-413: A new radical right-wing populist agenda. The Zürich wing began to politicise asylum issues, and the question of European integration started to dominate Swiss political debates. They also adopted more confrontational methods. The Zürich wing subsequently started to gain ground in the party at the expense of the Bern wing, and the party became increasingly centralised as a national party, in contrast to

385-682: Is a national-conservative and right-wing populist political party in Switzerland . Chaired by Marcel Dettling , it is the largest party in the Federal Assembly , with 62 members of the National Council and 6 of the Council of States . The SVP originated in 1971 as a merger of the Party of Farmers, Traders and Independents (BGB) and the Democratic Party , while the BGB, in turn, had been founded in

440-562: Is located at the mouth of the Fisibach stream. Bachs is a village with two centers which, since the fire of 1763, are known as Alt- and Neubachs (Old and New Bachs). Bachs has a population (as of 31 December 2020) of 613. As of 2007, 6.0% of the population was made up of foreign nationals. Over the last 10 years the population has decreased at a rate of -4%. Most of the population (as of 2000) speaks German (95.8%), with French being second most common ( 1.0%) and Spanish being third ( 0.9%). In

495-594: The 1979 federal election , with an increase from 11.3% to 14.5%. This was contrasted with the stable level in the other cantons, although the support also stagnated in Zürich through the 1980s. The struggle between the SVP's largest branches of Bern and Zürich continued into the early 1990s. While the Bern-oriented faction represented the old moderate style, the Zürich-oriented wing led by Christoph Blocher represented

550-510: The Christian Democratic People's Party (CVP/PDC) to form the new party The Centre (DM/LC). Cantonal parties were allowed to continue operating under the existing BDP/PBD name. Soon after Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf 's election to the Federal Council , the SVP/UDC excluded both her and the SVP/UDC's other Federal Councillor, Samuel Schmid , from the party group. Schmid, like Widmer-Schlumpf,

605-545: The Free Democratic Party had earlier been a popular party for farmers, this changed during World War I when the party had mainly defended the interests of industrialists and consumer circles. When proportional representation was introduced in 1919, the new farmers' parties won significant electoral support, especially in Zürich and Bern , and eventually also gained representation in parliament and government. By 1929,

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660-596: The Swiss Armed Forces as the institution responsible for national defense. They believe that the army should remain a militia force and should never become involved in interventions abroad. In June and July 2010, the party used the silly season for floating the notion of a "Greater Switzerland" , where instead of Switzerland joining the EU, the border regions of Switzerland's neighbours would join Switzerland, submitted in July in

715-557: The Swiss Conservative People's Party and the Free Democratic Party. In 1971, the BGB changed its name to the Swiss People's Party (SVP) after it merged with the Democratic Party from Glarus and Grisons . The Democratic Party had been supported particularly by workers, and the SVP sought to expand its electoral base towards these, as the traditional BGB base in the rural population had started to lose its importance in

770-468: The judiciary on politics. According to the SVP, this influence, especially through international law , increasingly puts the Swiss direct democracy in question. Public law which is legitimate by direct democracy standards should be agreed upon by the federal court. The European law, which according to the SVP is not democratically legitimate, shall always be subordinate to the Swiss law. The SVP also criticises

825-554: The tertiary sector , with 19 businesses in this sector. The historical population is given in the following table: 36 Adults Swiss People%27s Party The Swiss People's Party ( German : Schweizerische Volkspartei , SVP ; Romansh : Partida populara Svizra , PPS ), also known as the Democratic Union of the Centre ( French : Union démocratique du centre , UDC ; Italian : Unione Democratica di Centro , UDC ),

880-424: The 1930s. In the party's fight against left-wing ideologies, sections of party officials and farmers voiced sympathy with, or failed to distance themselves from, emerging fascist movements. After World War II , the BGB contributed to the establishment of the characteristic Swiss post-war consensual politics, social agreements and economic growth policies. The party continued to be a reliable political partner with

935-399: The 2000s. In line with the changes fostered by Blocher, the party started to focus increasingly on issues such as Euroscepticism and opposition to mass immigration . Its vote share of 28.9% in the 2007 federal election was the highest vote ever recorded for a single party in Switzerland until 2015 , when it surpassed its own record with 29.4%. Blocher's failure to win re-election as

990-619: The 2007 election the most popular party was the SVP which received 55.1% of the vote. The next three most popular parties were the SPS (11.6%), the Green Party (10%) and the CSP (6.4%). The age distribution of the population (as of 2000) is children and teenagers (0–19 years old) make up 25% of the population, while adults (20–64 years old) make up 62.4% and seniors (over 64 years old) make up 12.7%. About 77.8% of

1045-517: The Bilateral I agreements with the EU which include provisions on the reduction of trade barriers as well as barriers in agriculture, land transport and civil aviation. Swiss voters rejected the referendum with 61.7% against. Only four cantons voted in favor. The SVP supports supply-side economics . It is a proponent of lower taxes and government spending. The SVP is not as liberal in terms of its agricultural policy since, in consideration of it being

1100-461: The Free Movement of Persons bilateral agreement within one year of passage. It would also bar the government from concluding any agreements that would grant the free movement of people to foreign nationals. The initiative was opposed by the other major parties in Switzerland. Other parties were concerned that because of the "guillotine clause" in the bilateral agreements, this would terminate all of

1155-460: The SVP has gained a reputation as a party that maintains a hard-line stance. In its foreign policy the SVP opposes the growing involvement of Switzerland in intergovernmental and especially supranational organisations , including the UN , EEA , EU , Schengen and Dublin treaties, and closer ties with NATO . The party stands for a strict neutrality of the country and the preservation of the strong role of

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1210-446: The SVP opposes governmental measures for environmental protection . In its transportation policy, the party therefore endorses the expansion of the Swiss motorway network and is against the preference of public transportation over individual transportation. It supports the construction of megaprojects such as AlpTransit but criticizes the cost increases and demands more transparency. In

1265-465: The SVP's popularity, the party gained a second ministerial position in the Federal Council in 2003, which was taken by Christoph Blocher . Before this, the only SVP Federal Councillor had always been from the moderate Bern wing. The 2007 federal election still confirmed the SVP as the strongest party in Switzerland with 28.9% of the vote and 62 seats in the National Council, the largest share of

1320-448: The SVP/UDC incumbent Christoph Blocher led to the creation of the party. It comprised most of the SVP/UDC's old centrist-agrarian wing, which had been overshadowed in recent years by its nationalist-activist wing. The party's name in German, French, Italian and Romansh came from " bourgeois ", the traditional European term for a centre-right party. On 1 January 2021, the party merged with

1375-562: The Swiss Constitution. However, the four existing minarets are not affected by the new legislation. The party has been active in the counter-jihad movement, participating in the 2010 international counter-jihad conference. Other recent victories of the SVP in regards to immigration policy include the federal popular initiatives " for the expulsion of criminal foreigners " (52.3%), and " Against mass immigration " (50.3%) in 2010 and 2014 respectively, all injecting counter-jihad policies into

1430-817: The areas of social welfare policy and education policy, a return to meritocracy . The SVP is skeptical toward governmental support of gender equality, and the SVP has the smallest proportion of women among parties represented in the Federal Assembly of Switzerland . It was the only major party represented in the Assembly to oppose the legalization of same-sex marriage . Conservative Democratic Party of Switzerland The Conservative Democratic Party of Switzerland ( German : Bürgerlich-Demokratische Partei Schweiz , BDP; French : Parti bourgeois démocratique suisse , PBD; Italian : Partito Borghese Democratico Svizzero , PBD; Romansh : Partida burgais democratica Svizra PBD , PBD; Swiss Democratic Bourgeois Party )

1485-404: The cantonal branches adopted the agenda of the Zürich wing. In the 1999 federal election , the SVP for the first time became the strongest party in Switzerland with 22.5% of the vote, a 12.6% share increase. This was the biggest increase of votes for any party in the entire history of the Swiss proportional electoral system, which was introduced in 1919. As a result of the remarkable increase in

1540-716: The change from BPS to BDP was due to a name conflict with the extant minor party Bürgerpartei Schweiz (Citizen's Party of Switzerland), which has the same acronym BPS. As a result, the Grisons branch also changed its name to BDP Graubünden . Soon afterward, nearly all of the SVP/UDC's Bern section, including Schmid, defected to the new party. Eleven other cantonal branches were founded, predominantly in German-speaking Switzerland: Aargau , Basel-Landschaft , Fribourg , Glarus , Lucerne , Schwyz , Solothurn , St. Gallen , Thurgau , Valais and Zürich . The BDP

1595-464: The coalition of farmers' parties had gained enough influence to get one of their leaders, Rudolf Minger , elected to the Federal Council. In 1936, a representative party was founded on the national level, called the Party of Farmers, Traders and Independents (BGB). During the 1930s, the BGB entered the mainstream of Swiss politics as a right-wing conservative party in the bourgeois bloc. While

1650-415: The context of the emerging local farmers' parties in the late 1910s. The SVP initially did not enjoy any increased support beyond that of the BGB, retaining around 11% of the vote through the 1970s and 1980s. This changed however during the 1990s, when the party underwent deep structural and ideological changes under the influence of Christoph Blocher ; the SVP then became the strongest party in Switzerland by

1705-409: The continuous progression of the SVP since 1987. The party drew 26.6% percent of the vote, a 2.3-point decrease from the previous elections in 2007. This loss could be partly attributed to the split of the BDP, which gained 5.4% of the vote in 2011. However the SVP rebounded strongly in the 2015 federal election , gathering a record 29.4% of the national vote and 65 seats in parliament. Media attributed

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1760-421: The first opposition group in Switzerland since the 1950s. In 2008, the SVP demanded that Widmer-Schlumpf resign from the Federal Council and leave the party. When she refused, the SVP demanded that its Grisons branch expel her. Since Swiss parties are legally federations of cantonal parties, the federal SVP could not expel her itself. The Grisons branch stood by Widmer-Schlumpf, leading the SVP to expel it from

1815-410: The form of a motion to the Federal Council by Dominique Baettig , signed by 26 SVP Councillors. Some, such as newspaper Die Welt , have also speculated that the initiative could be a response to the suggestion by Muammar al-Gaddafi to dissolve Switzerland and divide its territory among its neighbouring countries . Another key concern of the SVP is what it alleges is an increasing influence of

1870-517: The former branch represented the centrist faction, and the latter looked to put new issues on the political agenda. When the young entrepreneur Christoph Blocher was elected president of the Zürich SVP in 1977, he declared his intent to oversee significant change in the political line of the Zürich SVP, bringing an end to debates that aimed to open the party up to a wide array of opinions. Blocher soon consolidated his power in Zürich, and began to renew

1925-428: The judiciary as undemocratic because the courts have made decisions against the will of the majority. In its immigration policy, the party commits itself to make asylum laws stricter and to reduce immigration. The SVP warns of immigration into the social welfare system and criticises the high proportion of foreigners among the public insurance benefit recipients and other social welfare programs. It addresses fears of

1980-597: The mass defection of the local SVP, the Conservative Democrats were the third-largest delegation in the Grand Council of Graubünden , with 30 seats, behind the Christian Democratic People's Party and FDP.The Liberals . The BDP also was the third-largest party in the Cantonal Council of neighbouring Glarus , with ten of the legislature's sixty seats. After the BDP lost four seats in the 2019 election (and, therefore, its status as an own parliamentary group),

2035-486: The most popular party among farmers, it refuses to reduce agricultural subsidies or curtail the current system of direct payments to farmers, to ensure larger farming businesses do not dominate the marketplace. The expansion of the Schengen Area eastward was looked at skeptically by the SVP, which it associated with economic immigration and higher crime rates. In terms of the environment, transportation and energy policy

2090-415: The organisational structures, activities, campaigning style and political agenda of the local branch. The young members of the party was boosted with the establishment of a cantonal Young SVP (JSVP) in 1977, as well as political training courses. The ideology of the Zürich branch was also reinforced, and the rhetoric hardened, which resulted in the best election result for the Zürich branch in fifty years in

2145-575: The party opposed any kind of socialist ideas such as internationalism and anti-militarism , it sought to represent local Swiss traders and farmers against big business and international capital. The BGB contributed strongly to the establishment of the Swiss national ideology known as the Geistige Landesverteidigung (Spiritual Defence of the Nation), which was largely responsible for the growing Swiss sociocultural and political cohesion from

2200-431: The party's Grisons and Bern sections, to which Widmer-Schlumpf and Schmid belonged respectively, would have had to expel them. On 2 April 2008, the national SVP/UDC leadership called for Widmer-Schlumpf to immediately resign from both the Federal Council and the party. When Widmer-Schlumpf declined to do so, the national SVP/UDC demanded that the Grisons branch expel her. The Grisons section stood by Widmer-Schlumpf, and

2255-470: The party's election gains. The SVP adheres to national conservatism , aiming at the preservation of Switzerland's political sovereignty and a conservative society. Furthermore, the party promotes the principle of individual responsibility and is skeptical toward any expansion of governmental services. This stance is most evident in the rejection of an accession of Switzerland to the European Union ,

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2310-420: The party. Shortly afterward, the Grisons branch reorganised itself as the Conservative Democratic Party (BDP). Soon afterward, virtually all of the SVP's Bern branch, including Schmid, defected to the new party. The SVP regained its position in government in late 2008, when Schmid was forced to resign due to a political scandal, and was replaced with Ueli Maurer . The 2011 federal election put an end to

2365-451: The political mainstream. The 2014 referendum resulted in a narrow victory for the SVP. Following the vote, the Swiss government entered into negotiations with the EU and, in 2016, concluded an agreement that would provide for preferences for Swiss citizens in hiring. The SVP criticized the agreement as weak. In response, in 2020, the party placed the ballot a referendum called the "For Moderate Immigration" initiative, which would terminate

2420-463: The population (between age 25-64) have completed either non-mandatory upper secondary education or additional higher education (either university or a Fachhochschule ). Bachs has an unemployment rate of 0.79%. As of 2005, there were 92 people employed in the primary economic sector and about 29 businesses involved in this sector. 36 people are employed in the secondary sector and there are 3 businesses in this sector. 171 people are employed in

2475-492: The post-war era. As the Democratic Party had represented centrist , social-liberal positions, the course of the SVP shifted towards the political centre following internal debates. The new party however continued to see its level of support at around 11%, the same as the former BGB throughout the post-war era. Internal debates continued, and the 1980s saw growing conflicts between the Bern and Zürich cantonal branches, where

2530-470: The rejection of military involvement abroad, and the rejection of increases in government spending on social welfare and education. The SVP "does not reject either democracy or the liberal order," and the terms "right-wing populist" or "far-right" are rarely used to describe it in Switzerland. The emphasis of the party's policies lies in foreign policy, immigration and homeland security policy as well as tax and social welfare policy. Among political opponents,

2585-523: The rise to concerns over the European migrant crisis . The party received the highest proportion of votes of any Swiss political party since 1919, when proportional representation was first introduced, and it received more seats in the National Council than any other political party since 1963, when the number of seats was set at 200. The SVP gained a second member in the Federal Council again, with Guy Parmelin replacing Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf after

2640-417: The scope of environmentalism and energy policy, the SVP is against the carbon tax and supports the use of nuclear energy . In the context of reductions of CO 2 emissions, the SVP cites the limited impact of Switzerland and instead supports globally, and legally binding agreements to address global climate change . In social welfare policy the SVP rejects expansion of the welfare state , and stands for

2695-412: The traditional Swiss system of parties with loose organisational structures and weak central powers. During the 1990s, the party also doubled its number of cantonal branches (to eventually be represented in all cantons), which strengthened the power of the Zürich wing, since most new sections supported their agenda. In 1991, the party for the first time became the strongest party in Zürich, with 20.2% of

2750-427: The vote for any single party ever in Switzerland. However, the Federal Council refused to re-elect Blocher, who was replaced by Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf of the moderate Graubünden branch. In response, the national SVP withdrew its support from Widmer-Schlumpf and its other Federal Councillor, fellow SVP moderate Samuel Schmid , from the party, along with Widmer-Schlumpf's whole cantonal section. The SVP thus formed

2805-469: The vote. The party broke through in the early 1990s in both Zürich and Switzerland as a whole, and experienced dramatically increasing results in elections. From being the smallest of the four governing parties at the start of the 1990s, the party by the end of the decade emerged as the strongest party in Switzerland. At the same time, the party expanded its electoral base towards new voter demographics. The SVP in general won its best results in cantons where

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2860-553: Was a conservative political party in Switzerland from 2008 to 2020. After the 2019 federal election , the BDP had three members in the National Council . It was founded as a moderate splinter group from the national-conservative Swiss People's Party (SVP/UDC); it was created as a political party on the federal level on 1 November 2008. It was led by Martin Landolt . It had, until January 2016, one Federal Councillor , Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf , whose election in defiance of

2915-403: Was a member of the SVP/UDC's moderate wing; the party's dominant nationalist wing reckoned them both as unrepresentative of the SVP/UDC's populist campaigns. Some party members demanded that Widmer-Schlumpf and Schmid be thrown out of the party altogether. However, Swiss parties are legally federations of cantonal parties, so the SVP/UDC could not expel them directly. For them to have been expelled,

2970-518: Was described as being centre to centre-right , and supported bilateral accords with the European Union , and it opposed the tightening of Switzerland's asylum . It opposed additional benefits to health insurance , although it did not necessarily support limiting them. The BDP supported the raising of the retirement age , opposed any relaxation to requirements to receive social welfare , and supported same-sex marriage . The party favoured

3025-479: Was expelled from the national SVP/UDC on the following 1 June. On 16 June 2008, the delegates' convention of the SVP/UDC's former Grisons branch voted to change its name to BPS Graubünden (Conservative Party of Switzerland-Graubünden), becoming the first cantonal section of what would become the BDP/PBD. A second cantonal section was founded in Bern on 21 June 2008 under the name BDP/PBD (Conservative Democratic Party);

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