Alliance of Independents (Switzerland)

In the 1930s, the founder of the Swiss retail chain Migros Gottlieb Duttweiler was disappointed in Swiss politics and, together with a group of associates, founded the Independent Alliance as an association. At first, the association was not supposed to become a political party; it was supposed to be an association that would help the agreements between capitalists and workers. At first, the Alliance of Independents served the interests of the Duttweiler distribution network, lobbying against legislative initiatives that contradict its business model and restrict distribution networks and mobile trading.

In the 1935 election, the Alliance won 7 seats of the National Council. When the initial plan of the alliance as an association of the best politicians of different parties, the Alliance was finally transformed into a political party on December 30, 1936.

In 1936-1962, the leader of the party was Duttweiler himself. Due to its authoritarian leadership style and its unclear political position, a split occurred in the party in 1943 and many of the party’s leading politicians participated in the elections as Independent - Free List, gaining one seat of parliament. During the Duttweiler era, the Alliance received about 5% of the vote. However, the party was never successful in the French and Italian-speaking cantons and in central Switzerland (with the exception of Lucerne ).

After the death of Duttweiler in 1962, the party was able to position itself as a socially liberal alternative to the left and right sides in Swiss politics. In the 1967 parliamentary elections , the Alliance of Independents received 9.1% of the vote and 16 of the 200 seats of the National Council. In this period, new cantonal branches were opened. In the late 1970s, an intra-party conflict arose when the pro-ecological wing of the party was opposed to the traditional opponents of the social market economy .

In the mid-1980s, the party’s environmental wing began to dominate. However, due to the fact that the main sponsor of the party, the Migros trading network had ideological differences with the environmental wing, it significantly reduced the party’s funding. Due to financial problems, the daily party newspaper was turned into a weekly newspaper. The party lost its profile and its voters switched to new parties and protest groups, including the Green Party and the Freedom Party .

Over time, the party began to lose voters, who gradually began to pass to the Social Democratic Party and the Greens. In the 1990s, the party tried to regain its influence by returning to its socially liberal roots. However, after the electoral losses and the numerous transition of politicians to other parties, the party was dissolved on December 4, 1999.