The League and UDC rejoice, Bignasca calls for a wall against Italy

The Ticino League and the UDC (the Swiss People’s Party) are rejoicing over the result obtained in the Swiss federal elections. Electors have chosen one more League MP and one UDC MP to go to Berne, to the National Council, one of the two branches of Parliament.

The leader of the Ticino League, Giuliano Bignasca (see photo), spoke immediately to reporters of the Swiss television station RSI, saying that the Ticino vote is a vote against Europe and against border-workers. He said, “We have to build a wall against Italy, and clarify many things about border-workers.”

Clarifications are published every week in the party’s Sunday newspaper, “Il Mattino”, and go from restrictions on labour to genuine regulation, which, all things considered, would put a stop to one of the things that Bignasca dislikes most, namely, the bilateral agreement on the free circulation of people (the “ALCP”). The charismatic leader of the League did a lot for these and for the last cantonal elections, in which, thanks to the essential help of the UDC with whom there is an unwritten agreement, he is now sending another member of the League, the counsellor Norman Gobbi, to the Government in Bellinzona. Today, we can also say that the favour has been returned, and the League-UDC union has produced the results hoped for, because the UDC President, Pierre Rusconi, obtained his seat in Berne, thanks also to the votes of the League, whose political contribution was decisive, although their numbers were not.

Rusconi, the man who promoted the “bala i ratt” campaign, and the League MPs will certainly have more say on the matter, and already this evening, the national UDC President, Toni Brunner, has guaranteed his support for Rusconi. For his part, Bignasca has announced that if the UDC shares the battle with his party, then talks may begin, but the Ticino League is ready to form an alliance with another party that has just entered the National Council with one seat, the Mouvement Citoyens Genevois (http://www.mcge.ch/), a party that was created in another border canton, Geneva, which is very critical towards the French border-workers. There is no reason to deny that these results are important for people who live close to a canton like Ticino, which, it should be remembered, saw in these federal elections historic parties like the PPD (People’s Democratic Party) fail to gain ground, or like the Socialist Party, who made the fatal decision not to run with the Ticino Greens, lose seats, or like the radical liberals (the PLR), who have been split for some time. The UDC consolidated its position, but did not win outright, however, the great surprise was the Liberal Green Party (let’s keep an eye on them in Switzerland), a party founded only in 2007, with the precise aim of combining ecological objectives with the needs of the economy. Another important result is that of the      Conservative Democratic Party of Switzerland (Partito Borghese Democratico), a rightwing party founded in 2008, part of the UDC, that is more open to current important social and environmental matters. In conclusion, Switzerland has maintained its history as a real democracy of the people, with elections that could become part of international political treaties.

Today’s result now forces Italian politicians to deal also, and above all, with these parties, who have made anti-border and anti-Italian campaigns their strength, without forgetting that the people now heading for Berne or Bellinzona are doing so because they obtained the vote of the people, which is sacred in Switzerland.