Switzerland: Political Developments and Data in 2021

In 2021, as in the previous year, political dynamics in Switzerland were strongly influenced by the Covid-19 pandemic. Institutionally, the ‘special situation’ according to the Federal Law of Epidemics affected the power distribution between federal government and the subnational units. Moreover, compared with the first pandemic year, 2021 was marked by strong polarization of society and the political parties on several pandemic-related issues. One consequence of this were two referendums held on the Covid-19 law, which served as a legal basis for the Federal Council to mitigate the negative effects of the coronavirus pandemic on society and the economy. While voters supported the federal government in both cases, the rich direct-democratic year in Switzerland was otherwise dominated by a rejection of the other main governmental proposition, namely the revised CO2 law