2019 Elections: Cold Shower for the Recreational Hunter Lobby

The abhorrent mindset and senseless violence against innocent and partly protected wild animals has been dealt a setback.

Editorial Team Wild beim Wild — 21 October 2019

For the elections of 20 October 2019, the militant association JagdSchweiz endorsed 25 candidates for the National Council and Council of States.

Of the 9 incumbent politicians closely aligned with recreational hunting, 3 were voted out. 16 newly fielded recreational hunters had no chance with voters.

BDP and SVP lose recreational hunter seats

The BDP party, led by its president and amateur hunter Martin Landolt, was thoroughly gutted at the elections . The small party suffered further losses and can no longer form its own parliamentary group. Recreational hunter Duri Campell, on the JagdSchweiz list, was voted out along with the BDP.

There were also changes within the board of the violence-promoting association JagdSchweiz during the 2019 election year. The controversial president Hanspeter Egli was replaced along with other amateur hunters.

The likewise voted-out recreational hunter Jean-François Rime (SVP) was once a Federal Council candidate and was at the time busy cultivating the cliché of the seat-warmer at the trade association. His defeat renders any further discussions about an extraordinary extension of his term at the umbrella trade organisation unnecessary.

Another prominent casualty is the Glarus recreational hunter Werner Hösli. The SVP politician sat in the upper chamber. He lost his seat to the Green candidate Mathias Zopfi. The fact that the Greens managed to win a Council of States seat in the canton of Glarus amounts to nothing short of a sensation.

Notably among the candidates put forward by the JagdSchweiz association is the fact that one wildlife killer, David Gerke, had embedded himself with the Greens in the canton of Solothurn. Even in the 2019 National Council elections, however, David Gerke once again stood no chance. By his own account, incidentally, a person who denies the existence of God (an atheist), yet in his naivety likens himself to a predator.

Conversely, particularly radical animal rights circles should keep in mind that the human recreational hunter does nothing other than what the natural cycle of matter and food is built upon: one animal eats another. The recreational hunter who shoots and utilizes a roe deer does nothing different from a lynx that takes down and eats the same kind of animal. Both, human and lynx alike, are part of nature, and both act in their own way as predators. This is reprehensible in neither case, even if it involves pain and death for the roe deer in question … For these reasons, it is — especially for me as a nature, species, and animal welfare advocate — no contradiction to practice hunting and fishing myself, but rather the only logical consequence of a love for nature and wildlife.
David Gerke

SVP National Councillor and recreational hunter Silvia Flückiger from the canton of Aargau announced her resignation.

Not a single recreational hunter from the SP was listed among the candidates in the elections. A woman or female recreational hunter was also not supported by the Swiss Hunting Association. Traditionally, recreational hunters come predominantly from the right-wing camp.

Green wave: 26 additional seats

The 2019 elections brought the Greens and Green Liberals 26 additional seats in the National Council.

In the National Council, the proportion of women increased above average compared to previous years. There are now 85 female National Councillors, up from just 63 previously.

This brings the proportion of women in the National Council to 42.5 percent, compared to the current 32 percent. In percentage points, this is a far stronger increase than the average of recent years.

Voter turnout fell again to 45.1 percent (-3.4 percentage points).