1/4
In the trade association’s SME rating, the company’s own president only ranked 85th.
Anyone who is “SME-friendly” votes as the Swiss trade association would do – of this it is convinced. On Thursday he published his “SME rating” for the fourth time since 2011. It ranks politicians based on how they voted since the last election.
Spicy: Ironically, their own president, middle national councilor Fabio Regazzi (60), performs very poorly. He only ends up in 85th place on the leaderboard!
How you get involved is more important
When asked, Regazzi reminds that rankings are never objective. Depending on the selection of the parameters, the results could be very different. Much more important is how you actually get involved. And: “I don’t think anyone can seriously question the fact that I’m committed to SMEs in Switzerland,” says Regazzi.
But he is also a member of a party. There are always party interests to consider when voting. He is not enthusiastic about this result, but he doesn’t think it’s bad either: “In the end, I’m happy that I did best in my party.”
Points, not ranking
“For us, it is not the ranking that is decisive,” puts Commercial Director Hans-Ulrich Bigler (64, SVP) into perspective. Rather, the decisive factor is the index rating – i.e. the question of how many points someone achieves.
And since Regazzi comes to over 40 points. According to the mathematical formula that underlies the whole thing, this means that he sided with the trade in more than two-thirds of the votes. “For us, politicians are SME-friendly from this threshold,” says Bigler. However, Regazzi only just manages the 40 points.
SVP is catching up – coincidence?
Apart from that, the picture has been roughly the same since 2011: the same names are repeatedly found at the top ranks. As parties, the SVP and FDP clearly led the rating.
Striking: While all the top ten places in the 2019 ranking were occupied by FDP members, there are now five SVP members in the front rows. Which prompted some parliamentarians to make pointed comments – namely, whether it was a coincidence that Bigler, who is responsible for the ranking, switched from the FDP to the SVP between the two surveys.
Followers have an advantage
Frontrunners in the National Council are Daniel Ruch (59, FDP) in first place and Benjamin Fischer (31, SVP) in second place. Both have moved up since the last election. The fact that two newcomers head the list is due to the ranking method. Anyone who deviates from the position of the trade association is punished disproportionately in the ranking. But those who move up have missed certain votes.
If you were to only consider politicians who took part in more than 80 percent of the votes, Lucerne would be Peter schillier (63, FDP) and Schaffhausen’s Thomas Hurter (59, SVP) in the first two places. But as it is, they occupy ranks three and four. National Councilor Roger is in fifth place coop (57) another SVP representative.
In the Council of States, SVP President Marco Chiesa (48) wins the race, followed by all other five SVP representatives. Martin Schmid (53), an FDP member, only came in 7th place.
Middle only mediocre
The center performs rather mediocre: Regazzi in 85th place is the most SME-friendly of the parliamentary group in the National Council, followed by the Basel bidder Elisabeth Schneider-Schneiter (58), after all the head of the Basel Chamber of Commerce. Center boss Gerhard Pfister (60) even missed the top 100 in 104th place. Things are looking a little better in the Council of States: the center is involved there from 13th place.
Leftists, Greens – not even Green Liberals – have nothing to report in the ranking. According to the trade association’s criteria, nobody is “SME-friendly”. National Councilor Céline Widmer (44) was the best-placed GLP participant in 103rd place. Representatives of the Greens and the SP can be found for the first time with Gerhard Andrey (46) and Nadine Masshardt (38) in 132nd and 133rd place.