Cities association wants more city votes in parliament

Against the ban on dual mandates

Cities association wants more city votes in parliament

Members of city executives should be allowed to politicize simultaneously under the federal dome. By banning dual mandates, the cities would weaken themselves, said the president of the Swiss Association of Cities, Anders Stokholm.

In many Swiss cities, such dual mandates are not allowed today, Stokholm said in an interview with the “Neue Zürcher Zeitung” on Wednesday. Consequently, the Federal Parliament does not represent that two-thirds of the Swiss population lives in urban areas. “There is an urgent need for more weighty urban voices there,” Stokholm said.

He saw an example of this in the federal government’s crisis plan for power cuts. Certain pumps in urban sewage systems would no longer start by themselves after an interruption. “Apparently nobody was aware of that at the federal level – and in an emergency it would have serious consequences.”