So here's the thing to understand about Swiss government: It never changes. Well at least its executive branch doesn't. Bear with me for a moment.
Swiss government (federal, cantonal and communal) differs from the American model in three ways:
* Power is not concentrated in a single person, but a council (e.g. 7 members on federal level). Decisions (as far as they can go before involving parliament) are made by secret votes inside the council and carried through as a single entity. Council members are supposed to never publicly talk about their individual opinions, only what the council represents as a whole. They're not supposed to be politicians anymore, they're acting much more like a board of directors.
* There's no such thing as a government / opposition split in Switzerland. In theory it could happen, but it never plays out this way. Instead, the four largest parties present their council candidates to the national assembly, who then vote for them one after the other. If a candidate doesn't please them the opposing parties form coalitions to vote in a counter candidate from the same party. That's the most spectacle we get. So even a socialist will vote for conservative council members - because the conservative party will do the same in return. It's a political truce that works like this since 67 years [1].
* Council members, while not immune to being 'deelected', in practise tend to stay in office for as long as they want. While there is an election cycle it doesn't really matter the way it plays out.
All of this together creates tremendous stability in the Swiss political system. The main instability comes from people's initiatives, which I tend to see as a good thing, since that at least reflects the viewpoint of the majority.
Really, sometimes I wonder how they came up with such a well oiled system in 1848. Maybe it helped being able to learn from the first gen. modern Republics and their mistakes (USA and France).
So here's the thing to understand about Swiss government: It never changes. Well at least its executive branch doesn't. Bear with me for a moment.
Swiss government (federal, cantonal and communal) differs from the American model in three ways:
* Power is not concentrated in a single person, but a council (e.g. 7 members on federal level). Decisions (as far as they can go before involving parliament) are made by secret votes inside the council and carried through as a single entity. Council members are supposed to never publicly talk about their individual opinions, only what the council represents as a whole. They're not supposed to be politicians anymore, they're acting much more like a board of directors.
* There's no such thing as a government / opposition split in Switzerland. In theory it could happen, but it never plays out this way. Instead, the four largest parties present their council candidates to the national assembly, who then vote for them one after the other. If a candidate doesn't please them the opposing parties form coalitions to vote in a counter candidate from the same party. That's the most spectacle we get. So even a socialist will vote for conservative council members - because the conservative party will do the same in return. It's a political truce that works like this since 67 years [1].
* Council members, while not immune to being 'deelected', in practise tend to stay in office for as long as they want. While there is an election cycle it doesn't really matter the way it plays out.
All of this together creates tremendous stability in the Swiss political system. The main instability comes from people's initiatives, which I tend to see as a good thing, since that at least reflects the viewpoint of the majority.
Really, sometimes I wonder how they came up with such a well oiled system in 1848. Maybe it helped being able to learn from the first gen. modern Republics and their mistakes (USA and France).
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_formula