The Health Minister's Spring: Alain Berset, Covid-19 and Swiss Parties and Politicians on Facebook, 2015 to 2020

Switzerland is governed by a collegial Federal Council drawn from the main parties, and some of its members run their own Facebook pages. I use 11,126 posts from eleven Swiss pages, those of the SP, FDP and SVP, five party presidents and three federal councillors, from May 2015 to September 2020, collected through CrowdTangle. Before the pandemic the SVP and SP party pages drew most interactions; the three party pages' shares matched their vote closely before the 2019 federal election but not in 2015. In March to May 2020, the page of Alain Berset, the federal councillor responsible for public health, drew 50% of all interactions on these pages, up from 13% in the previous twelve months and more than the three party pages combined. His median post drew about 15 times as many interactions as before, though he posted no more often, and his page likes rose from about 20,000 in February to 47,000 in June. By late summer the SVP page was again the most engaged, and in the four weeks before its Limitation initiative was put to the vote in September 2020 it drew 62% of interactions. Across 2015 to 2020, engagement rose far more in the weeks before federal elections than before popular votes, and the rise before votes went with extra posting. With few pages, and no Green or Green Liberal party page, the results describe these pages, not the Swiss party system.