Swiss politics

Swiss politics is very interesting. I thought I would pot an article from wiki about it.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Switzerland


Direct democracy

Switzerland features a system of government not seen at the national level on any other place on Earth: direct democracy, sometimes called half-direct democracy (this may be arguable, as, theoretically, one could state that the people have full power over the law). Referendums on the most important laws have been used since the 1848 constitution.

Any citizen may challenge a law that has been passed by parliament. If that person is able to gather 50,000 signatures against the law within 100 days, a national vote has to be scheduled where voters decide by a simple majority whether to accept or reject the law.

Also, any citizen may seek a decision on an amendment they want to make to the constitution. For such an amendment initiative to be organised, the signatures of 100,000 voters must be collected within 18 months. Such a popular initiative may be formulated as a general proposal or - much more often - be put forward as a precise new text whose wording can no longer be changed by parliament and the government. After a successful vote gathering, the federal council may create a counterproposal to the proposed amendment and put it to vote on the same day. Such counterproposals are usually a compromise between the status quo and the wording of the initiative. Voters will again decide in a national vote whether to accept the initiative amendment, the counterproposal put forward by the government or both. If both are accepted, one has to additionally signal a preference. Initiatives have to be accepted by a double majority of both the popular votes and a majority of the cantons.

Executive branch

The Swiss Federal Council is a seven-member executive council that heads the federal administration, operating as a combination cabinet and collective presidency. Any Swiss citizen eligible to be a member of the National Council can be elected[1]; candidates do not have to register for the election, or to actually be members of the National Council. The Federal Council is elected by the Federal Assembly for a four-year term. Present members are: Doris Leuthard, Samuel Schmid, Micheline Calmy-Rey, Pascal Couchepin, Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, Hans-Rudolf Merz and Moritz Leuenberger.

The largely ceremonial President of the Confederation and the Vice-President of Federal Council are elected by the Federal Assembly from among the members of the Federal Council for one-year terms that run concurrently. The current (2008) President and Vice President are Pascal Couchepin and Hans-Rudolf Merz, respectively.

The Swiss executive is one of the most stable governments worldwide. Since 1848, it has never been renewed entirely at the same time, providing a long-term continuity. From 1959 to 2003 the Federal Council was composed of a coalition of all major parties in the same ratio: 2 each from the Free Democratic Party, Social Democratic Party and Christian Democratic People's Party and 1 from the Swiss People's Party. Changes in the council occur typically only if one of the members resigns (merely four incumbent members were voted out of the office in over 150 years); this member is almost always replaced by someone from the same party (and often also from the same linguistic group).

This "magic formula" has been repeatedly criticised: in the 1960s, for excluding leftist opposition parties; in the 1980s, for excluding the emerging Green party; and particularly after the 1999 election, by the People's Party, which had by then grown from being the fourth largest party on the National Council to being the largest. In the elections of 2003, the People's Party received (effective January 1, 2004) a second seat in the Federal Council, reducing the share of the Christian Democratic Party to one seat.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Switzerland