Hundreds of new entrants – mainly from women
So the SP benefits from their AHV defeat
The defeat in the vote on the AHV reform was painful for the SP. The direct consequences for the party are not painful at all: it is experiencing a significant increase in membership.
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On the one hand, the defeat in the AHV vote was painful for the SP.
Ruedi StuderBundeshaus Editor
The defeat in the vote on the AHV reform for Mattea Meyer (35) and Cédric Wermuth (36) was “surprisingly close”, but “painful”, the SP leadership duo looks back on the political year in their Christmas podcast. “You won nothing with it – except an ideological victory for the political right,” complains Wermuth.
won nothing? It doesn’t look that bad for the SP after all: Because the AHV defeat gave the SP a boost in membership. “In the days after the AHV vote, we were able to record an above-average number of entries,” says party spokesman Nicolas Häsler to Blick. “On voting Sunday alone and the two days after that, we had 200 new entrants.” Throughout September there were around 400.
“The majority of these newcomers are women,” says Häsler. Not without reason: in the AHV vote, the women were outvoted by the men and sentenced to work longer. This has upset many women.
SP now has over 33,000 members
Thanks to the AHV boost, the SP has now also broken the hurdle of 33,000 members. At the end of November, the party had exactly 33,407 registered comrades.
Even though the Social Democrats are currently on the wane in elections, membership numbers have been on the rise for some time. Since Meyer and Wermuth took office in October 2020, around 2000 people have been added.
“Since 2015, the SP Switzerland has recorded a continuous increase in membership after we – like all other parties – had lost members since the mid-1990s,” explains Häsler. The joy is all the greater, “because, compared to some other parties, there are real members who pay membership fees and are active in their sections”.
Hundreds at AHV demo in Bern: “It’s about the position of women in Switzerland”(02:44)