Elections in Rapperswil-Jona: First female mayor or all-male committee? Hot election campaign is approaching its climax

After eight years in office, the career of Martin Stöckling, mayor of Rapperswil-Jona, could come to an abrupt end.

The result was already sobering for him in the first ballot. After strong criticism of his administration, the liberal ended up behind his non-party challenger Barbara Dillier in September. Nevertheless, he stuck to his candidacy. Since then, the second largest city in the canton of St. Gallen has been held in suspense by an unusually violent election campaign.

It wasn’t even so much the two candidates who fought a bitter duel. Rather, a controversial media entrepreneur and a group of “concerned citizens” caused the election campaign noise.

New president from Fischenthal?

One of Martin Stöckling’s loudest opponents is the publisher of the online portal “Linth24”, Bruno Hug. He has repeatedly attacked the incumbent over the last four years and harshly criticized him in articles. He blames the mayor for misconduct in various projects and accuses him of a lack of transparency and dishonesty. It was also Hug who launched the explosive candidate Barbara Dillier against Stöckling.

Dillier, who currently serves as mayor of the 2,600-person community of Fischenthal in Zurich, always emphasized her independence. However, Dillier did not disclose her campaign financing and her supporters for a long time, which earned her criticism from some local parties in the city. She recently announced that around a sixth of her 120,000 franc election campaign budget came from private donors. But Bruno Hug didn’t donate.

Advantage Dillier

Although Dillier hardly noticed any political content during the election campaign, she is considered the clear favorite in the second round of voting. This is not just because she has a 1,500-vote lead from the first round of voting. Dillier got 4,101 votes, but missed the absolute majority by a good 550 votes.

Without Dillier, Rapperswil-Jona’s city council would be entirely male from next year. The Zurich native could also become the first woman to lead the city on upper Lake Zurich.

Flyer campaign for Stöckling

At the same time, the majority in the city council would then be non-party. The SVP, the party with the highest number of voters, as well as the Greens and the GLP are no longer represented after the first round of voting. With the deselection of Stöckling, the FDP would also disappear from the executive branch of Rapperswil-Jona for the first time. A committee of “concerned citizens of Rapperswil-Jona” wants to prevent this. At the end of October it launched a flyer campaign.

The leaflets said that being the head of Rapperswil-Jona requires “political experience”. And: “We are convinced that Martin Stöckling is the most suitable person for this!”

Dillier or Stöckling, start-finish victory or rapid comeback: it will soon be clear who will steer the fortunes of Rapperswil-Jona for the next four years. The question will then be how quickly the bitter election campaign can be forgotten and substantive politics brought back into focus.

Zurich today

Receive selected news and background information from the city and region.

More newsletters

Log in

Fabienne Sennhauser is a duty editor in the Zurich Politics & Economics department.More info

Found an error? Report now.

2 comments