In the end, the result was clearer than expected. Almost 60 percent of Swiss voted on Sunday in favor of that pensioners in this country will receive a 13th month pension in the future. What sounds dry is nothing less than a political sensation. For the first time in the history of the thoroughly bourgeois country, a left-wing popular initiative calling for an expansion of the welfare state found a majority among the people and cantons.

The decision was preceded by a highly emotional voting battle. Requests to speak piled up in the online comment columns. In the city of Zurich, the administration had to empty the voting mailbox in the town hall every ten minutes because it was in danger of overflowing. In the end, the voter turnout was almost 60 percent, which is surprisingly high for such votes.