Cantonal elections BS LDP loses in Basel parliament, SP and SVP make slight gains

The SP gains 1 seat in the Basel parliament, the Greens remain stable. The LDP, previously the strongest bourgeois party, lost 2 seats and is therefore just as strongly represented as the SVP, which gained one seat, as the final results from Sunday evening showed.

A novelty was that this time the Greens and the left-wing party Basta ran on their own and no longer as the Green-Alternative Alliance with a joint list. Even separately, the two parties were able to retain their total of 18 seats with a voter share of 11 and 6.7 percent respectively. Overall, this is 1.1 percentage points more than the alliance achieved four years ago.

In contrast to the canton of Aargau on today's election Sunday and the national trend, the Greens did not suffer any losses. Basta gained 6 seats, making it a new independent party with parliamentary group strength.

With 31 seats, the SP is still the strongest parliamentary group in the Grand Council, although it lost ground in terms of voter share. This amounted to 29.2%, 0.8 percentage points less than in the 2020 elections. Nevertheless, the SP gained one seat.

SVP now the strongest middle-class party in terms of voters

The SVP also won the election. It was able to increase its voter share from 11% to 13.3%. This means that the SVP, and no longer the LDP, is now the strongest conservative party in the canton. It was able to increase its number of seats from 11 to 12. Like the SP, however, it was not quite able to make up for the loss of 4 seats in the 2020 elections.

One of the losers in the middle-class bloc was the Basel-specific LDP. It lost 2 seats and had to settle for a voter share of 12.4% (1.7 percentage points less). Although it performed less well than the SVP, the LDP is still the strongest civic group in the Grand Council thanks to the representative of the small local party "Aktives Bettingen".

GLP still tipping the scales despite loss

FDP and Center remain equally strong in the town hall. The Liberals achieved a voter share of 7.9 percent - only slightly less than four years ago. The Center Party remained stable at 7 seats and was able to increase its voter share by 0.4 percentage points to 6.7%. Their parliamentary group partners from the small party EVP increased their previous 3 seats to 4 with almost the same voter share of 3.6%.

The Green Liberals saw their voter share shrink from 7.8% to 6.8%. Although they are now only represented by 7 instead of 8 people in parliament, they are likely to continue to tip the scales in the future, depending on the constellation. With 49 seats, the left is facing a center-right block of 43 seats.

The far-right People's Action, whose parliamentarian Eric Weber is not a member of any parliamentary group, is still represented with one seat.

Voter turnout was 41.3 percent.