By Andreas Ladner
The Swiss Parliament – or better the Federal Assembly – was installed in 1848 when the former confederation of 25 independent cantons became a federal nation state. The form and organization of the Parliament was one of the main points of discussion while drafting the Constitution. Those in favour of a strong nation state – the liberal and predominantly protestant cantons which won the short civil war (“Sonderbund War”) – wanted a National Assembly with a composition reflecting the prevailing population proportions of the cantons. This would have put the smaller predominantly conservative and catholic cantons at a considerable disadvantage. They wanted a revised form of the Federal Diet (the legislative and executive council of the Swiss confederacy prior to 1848) representing the cantons equally. This, however, would have prevented the Liberals who were in the majority and located in the larger cantons of the Central Lowlands from building a more centralized and unified nation state.