Federal Councillor Doris Leuthard greeting the people

Vice-President Simonetta Sommaruga

President Didier Burkhalter

I could only think of the famous closing lines of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address “…that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth”  when I witnessed the entire Swiss Federal Government arrive for a visit in Lugano and quite literally step into the crowds of people.

I marveled to my husband, can you imagine President Obama, Vice-President Biden and the entire cabinet going out and mingling with this huge crowd of people. I was able to shake hands with our President, Didier Burkhalter, our Vice-President Simonetta Sommaruga, both of whom I admire enormously, as well as greet a few other ministers. Amazing!

But it does typify Swiss politics – I have never known a more participatory form of government. In fact, that’s why the whole Federal Government traipsed down to Ticino, because Ticino’s vote in February on the initiative to extend immigration quotas went against the Federal Government’s position by a whopping 68.2%. In fact, Ticino wasn’t the only canton to vote for it, as it very surprisingly passed by a hair-thin 50.3% . But that vote certainly clarified the view that Ticino needed to be knitted back into the fabric of a unified Switzerland. It doesn’t help that there has not been an Italian speaking (Ticinese) member of the Federal Government since 1999. So not only did the entire Federal Government show up, but at the same time the Swiss Embassy Conference also took place in Lugano, bringing 250 representatives of Switzerland throughout the world to this tiny town.

It was a significant show of support for Ticino, attempting to gather Ticino more firmly  in the Federal fold. Mark Twain wrote “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to Government, when it deserves it.” The Swiss government certainly is trying to deserve it.