Swiss election poll points to deepening political polarisation

The SVP leads at 29.9% as support rises on both sides of the political spectrum. The latest SRG election barometer points to a widening divide in Swiss politics: left-wing and right-wing parties are gaining ground while the centre is losing support. The trend matters in a country where government and lawmaking depend heavily on parties finding common ground across political lines.

The SVP’s result would put it two percentage points above its share in the 2023 federal election. On the left, the Socialist Party stands at 19.3%, up one point, while the Greens reach 10.3%, a gain of half a point. Together, they represent a substantial bloc, and their voters strongly back cooperation between the parties.

Centre parties have slipped from 38% to 35%. That change does not erase the centre’s electoral weight, but it leaves less room between the largest force on the right and the parties gaining ground on the left. The barometer also finds pronounced differences between men and women, particularly among younger voters. Taken together, the figures show a political landscape with stronger competing camps and fewer voters identifying with the centre.

The three biggest figures in the barometer underline the shift: SVP 29.9%, Socialist Party 19.3%, Greens 10.3%. The SVP remains by far the strongest individual party in the poll. Its support has increased since the 2023 election, while gains for the two largest left-wing parties have strengthened the opposite end of the political spectrum.

The left’s two parties are also closely aligned on cooperation. 98% of Green voters favour working with the Socialist Party, and 97% of Socialist voters favour working with the Greens. Those results suggest that supporters of both parties see coordination as important, though the poll figures do not describe what form that cooperation would take.

The centre’s share has moved in the other direction, falling from 38% to 35%. The barometer’s headline pattern is therefore not simply a contest between two individual parties. It is a broader change in the balance between the right, the left and the political middle. Switzerland’s multiparty system gives several parties a role in federal politics, making the size and cohesion of these blocs relevant to coalition-building and parliamentary compromise. The latest figures show a narrower centre and stronger poles, while leaving the SVP well ahead of any other single party.

Women are more likely than men to favour left-wing parties, while men lean more strongly to the right. The barometer records left-wing support at 35% among women and 23% among men. For right-wing parties, the pattern reverses: 50% of men and 37% of women say they would vote for parties on that side. Centre parties attract similar levels of support from both sexes.

The divide is sharper among voters under 35. Women in that age group are 14 percentage points more likely than men to support the Socialist Party. Men under 35 are 11 points more likely than women to support the SVP. The FDP also draws substantially more young men than young women, although the figures provided do not give a percentage for that gap.

Views on national priorities differ as well. Climate change ranks among the country’s main challenges for 40% of women, compared with 31% of men. These differences indicate that political preferences are not distributed evenly across the electorate. They also show why broad party totals can conceal distinct patterns among demographic groups. The barometer presents these contrasts as part of the same polarisation trend shaping party support.

Only 27% of respondents think the Federal Council strikes the right political balance, the lowest share since 2019. More than a third consider the government too right-wing, and more than a third consider it too left-wing. The responses point to dissatisfaction on both sides, rather than broad agreement that the government sits in the middle.

The comparison with autumn 2021 is notable. During the coronavirus pandemic, 45% considered the Federal Council politically balanced, 18 points more than in the latest barometer. The new result places public perceptions of the government alongside the poll’s wider pattern of rising support at the political poles and declining support for the centre.

Switzerland’s political system relies heavily on consensus and compromise. Federal decisions often require cooperation among parties with different priorities, and the Federal Council itself is expected to govern across those divisions. A smaller centre and sharper differences in public opinion can make that work harder, particularly when parties face voters who see the government as leaning too far in one direction. The barometer offers a snapshot, not a prediction of how parties will act after an election. But it shows that fewer respondents currently see the government as balanced, even as competing political camps gain strength.