National Council (Switzerland)

National Council Nationalrat  (German) Conseil National  (French) Consiglio Nazionale  (Italian) Cussegl Naziunal  (Romansh)
Type
Type	Lower house
Leadership
President	Christa Markwalder, FDP/PLR Since 28 November 2015
First Vice President	Jürg Stahl, SVP/UDC Since 28 November 2015
First Vice President councillor	Dominique de Buman, CVP/PDC Since 28 November 2015
Structure
Seats	200
Political groups	Government parties (168)      SVP/UDC 65      SP/PS 43      FDP/PLR 33      CVP/PDC 27 Other parliamentary parties (32)      Greens (GPS/PES) 11      BDP/PBD 7      GLP/PVL 7      EVP/PEV 2      LdT 2      MCG 1      PdA 1      Other 1
Elections
Voting system	Party-list proportional representation Hagenbach-Bischoff system
Last election	18 October 2015
Meeting place
Federal Palace of Switzerland, Bern
Website
http://www.parliament.ch/

The National Council (German: Nationalrat, French: Conseil National, Italian: Consiglio Nazionale, Romansh: Cussegl Naziunal) is the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Switzerland. With 200 seats, it is the larger of the two houses.

Members are elected by adult citizens, along with the Swiss Council of States. 4.6 million citizens were eligible to vote in 2003. The members, called 'National Councillors', serve four-year terms.

Proportional voting

Each of Switzerland's 26 cantons is a constituency. The number of deputies for each constituency depends on the canton's population, but each canton has at least one deputy.

Each canton then uses a unique system of proportional representation, sometimes called a "free list". Each citizen may cast a vote for any candidate for every seat available to their constituency, with up to one candidate being voted for twice. For every vote received by a candidate, that candidate's party also receives a vote. Voters also list a party vote, in which all blank candidate votes contribute towards the parties total.

The seats are then apportioned using the Hagenbach-Bischoff System. This system is unique in that it allows voters to split their vote across different parties, depending on which candidate the voter prefers.^[1]

Fictional voter

To determine a party's strength, the notion of "fictional voter" was introduced and is defined by the Swiss Federal Statistical Institute as: number of votes obtained by party A * (number of valid ballots / number of valid votes). Individual voters can choose to make fewer than the permissible number of votes. The number of valid votes / number of valid ballots closely match the number of deputies a canton needs to elect. More exactly, this number represents the average number of valid votes per voter. The formula can then be summed up by: number of votes obtained by party A / average of valid votes per voters.

The result is the number of fictional voters for a given party in a given canton. A total number of fictional voters can then be established and the party strength can be deduced.

The number of deputies in each party is determined at the cantonal level using proportional representation with the Hagenbach-Bischoff system (except in single-member cantons.) The election's turnout is computed as: number of valid ballots cast / number of registered voters.

2011 election

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The National Council election in 2011 resulted in the strengthening of the political center and the reversing of the trend towards polarisation in Swiss politics that took place during the 1990s and 2000s. During this election, centrist parties gained about 7% of the popular vote, with the right pole losing 3.6% and the left pole losing 3.5%. Voter turnout was 48.5%, compared to 48.3% in 2007.

Committees

• Foreign Affairs Committee (FAC)
• Committee for Science, Education and Culture (CSEC)
• Committee for Social Security and Health (CSSH)
• Committee for the Environment, Spatial Planning and Energy (CESPE)
• Defence Committee (DefC)
• Committee for Transportation and Telecommunications (CTT)
• Committee for Economic Affairs and Taxation (CEAT)
• Political Institutions Committees (PIC)
• Committee for Legal Affairs (CLA)
• Committee for Public Buildings (CPB)

Supervisory committees

• Finance Committee (FC)
• Control Committees (CC)
• Parliamentary investigation committees (PIC)

Other committees

• Committee on Pardons
• Rehabilitation Committee
• Drafting Committee
• Judicial Committee

Members per canton

Development of composition of the Swiss National Council, 1919-2011

Abbr	Canton	Number of Seats	Population (2009)	Population per seat
ZH	Zurich	34	1,406,083	41,355
BE	Bern	26	985,046	37,886
LU	Lucerne	10	381,966	38,197
UR	Uri	1	35,382	35,382
SZ	Schwyz	4	147,904	36,976
OW	Obwalden	1	35,878	35,878
NW	Nidwalden	1	41,311	41,311
GL	Glarus	1	39,217	39,217
ZG	Zug	3	113,597	37,866
FR	Fribourg	7	284,668	40,667
SO	Solothurn	7	259,836	37,119
BS	Basel-Stadt	5	194,090	38,818
BL	Basel-Landschaft	7	277,973	39,710
SH	Schaffhausen	2	77,139	38,570
AR	Appenzell Ausserrhoden	1	53,313	53,313
AI	Appenzell Innerrhoden	1	15,789	15,789
SG	St. Gallen	12	483,101	40,258
GR	Graubünden	5	193,388	38,678
AG	Aargau	15	624,681	41,645
TG	Thurgau	6	254,528	42,421
TI	Ticino	8	336,943	42,118
VD	Vaud	18	725,944	40,330
VS	Valais	8	317,022	45,289
NE	Neuchâtel	5	173,183	34,637
GE	Geneva	11	472,530	42,957
JU	Jura	2	70,542	35,271

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Federal Palace of Switzerland.

• List of Presidents of the National Council of Switzerland
• List of members of the National Council of Switzerland, 2007–11
• List of members of the National Council of Switzerland, 2003–07

Notes and references

Bibliography

• Federal Chancellor Corina Casanova, ed. (28 April 2015), The Swiss Confederation – A Brief Guide 2015 (PDF), Berne, Switzerland: Swiss Confederation, retrieved 2016-01-04