Zurich government councilor is threatened with deselection
Is Silvia Steiner missing a loser image in the middle?
According to a survey, Silvia Steiner, director of education in Zurich, faces being voted out in four weeks. For her party, the center, that would be bitter at the start of the election year.
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Zurich’s director of education, Silvia Steiner, is threatened with being voted out in mid-February.
Sermin Fakipolitical chief
The center is not doing badly at all at the moment – at least the polls for the upcoming elections are not predicting any further losses. In the upcoming elections in Zurich on February 12th, slight growth could even emerge. It would be the first for the party, formerly known as the CVP, in many years.
But the center could be unlucky: According to a new survey by the Sotomo research institute on behalf of the “Tages-Anzeiger”, the center government councilor Silvia Steiner (64) is threatened with being voted out.
Everyone would only talk about Steiner
According to the survey, she has exactly the same share of voters as SP challenger Priska Seiler Graf (54). 36 percent of all respondents would write both women on the ballot. Seiler Graf leads the list of attackers, while Steiner carries the red lantern of all previous ones.
If it really comes to that, it would be bitter for the middle. Because your good performance in the cantonal elections is likely to be overshadowed by Steiner’s deselection. Instead of appearing as a (somewhat) successful party, eight months before the federal elections, the image of the loser would again be attached to it.
“We knew we had to fight”
The Zurich co-president of the middle, Nicole Barandun, does not like to paint black. The survey was taken before the actual election campaign began, she says. She is therefore confident that the party could still mobilize its own voters and those of other bourgeois parties.
But Barandun admits: “We knew from the start that we, as a small party, would have to fight for the seat.” Especially since the education department was not easy to manage during the corona pandemic and because of the shortage of teachers. In fact, especially in the first two years of the pandemic, Steiner had to listen to accusations of inactivity from many sides because she left the schools open and also resisted the obligation to wear masks in the classroom for a long time.
Hope for civil solidarity
Barandun, on the other hand, points out that Seiler Graf is also a red rag for many: “I can hardly imagine that the FDP and SVP want Priska Seiler Graf to come into the Zurich government. First of all, that would actually be a third SP seat, and secondly, Ms. Seiler was very polarized about the purchase of the fighter jet.”
The center will not give up without a fight: “We have put up a lot of posters in the last few days and will do many stand campaigns, especially in rural areas with middle-class voters.” And last but not least, she hopes that the middle-class members of the government will appear together. “It will raise awareness of the need for mutual support.”