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Comment by nickik | Hacker News Reader

Switzerland has the most direct democracy and it works really quite well. We can overrule things representatives do with a 50000 signatures and a popular vote. We can introduce new laws with 100000 signatures and a popular vote.

That sort of system has many flaws but I would take it much rather then the US system.

In fact the Swiss system is based on the US, just with more direct democracy and a far less powerful president.

I would actually argue that the removal of presidential powers is the most important thing. Having all your top ministers be selected by the one popular vote for president is pretty insane when you think about it.

In Switzerland the top ministers are from 4-5 different parties and they have to work together every day. The departments are not fixed and switch about between people and parties.

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Sometimes there are unpopular decisions that are nevertheless the right decisions. When you elect a representative, you're basically putting your faith in that person, rather than a particular policy.

Yes, we have representatives to and its a nice theory. But at least in the Swiss experience the population often makes pretty tough choices.

We voted on 6 weeks mandatory vacation and the people voted against it.

The parliament wanted to join the EU in the 1990, the people rejected it.

Also, often you end up putting your faith into parties rather then people and the people are compromised by party policy anyway. That you are voting for free thinking individual is mostly a fantasy.

This leads to anti-minority laws like Minarett-Verbot (minarets can no longer be built due to this law) etc.

Yes, people love to talk about that one law and bring it up at every opportunity as if we were stoning muslims to death.

It was really mostly because people didn't like the architecture. Muslims in Switzerland are freer then in many other countries in Europe and for every 'evil populist' law that Switzerland made you will find that 10 populist proposals have been rejected (left and right wing).

Also, lets remember that Minarett are something people like, they are not required or in any way limit religious freedom of Muslims.

So yes, we had like 4 Minaret and they wanted to build 2 more and can't. Populism has truly made live hell.

That's very interesting, thanks for sharing.

What is the mechanism for creating or disbanding ministries?

The ministries are always the same. Sorry if I implied differently.

The 7 Top Minister (Bundesrat elected by Parliament) pick a ministry and the select based on how long they have been in.

So in the beginning you might get something unpopular like military but after a couple years you can switch to interior minister.

Because they don't get replaced as often as US presidents they can have a much longer term view. In fact they hardly get replaced at all, mostly they just retire.

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