Miscalculated by billions Do we have to vote again after the AHV debacle?

The AHV miscalculation has triggered a wave of indignation. The left-wing camp is insisting on a repeat of the vote on the retirement age for women. How likely is such a scenario?

The Federal Social Insurance Office (FSIO) used two incorrect mathematical formulas when calculating the AHV's financial prospects. As a result, AHV expenditure up to 2033 was overestimated. According to initial, still provisional estimates by the FSIO, expenditure in 2033 was overestimated by around CHF 4 billion.

On Tuesday, the federal government ordered an administrative investigation to clarify the cause of the error. The results of the investigation should be available by the end of 2024, according to the federal government.

Meanwhile, the miscalculation has triggered a wave of indignation among political parties and trade unions. The federal government's incorrect forecast raises questions, particularly with regard to the vote on raising the retirement age for women to 65 (AHV 21).

Billion-euro error causes unrest in BernAHV mishap relieves the federal government, but could be expensive

On September 25, 2022, the people and cantons approved the AHV 21 reform. It came into force on January 1, 2024. As the result two years ago was a wafer-thin 50.55% in favor, the question now arises as to whether a more positive AHV forecast by the federal government could have overturned this result.

SP Women and Greens call for the vote to be repeated

"The seemingly dramatic financial forecasts for the AHV were one of the main reasons why the increase in the women's retirement age received a wafer-thin majority in September 2022. It is now clear that this scaremongering, as the SP Women have long suspected, has no factual basis," write the SP Women in a communiqué and demand: "The vote on raising the women's retirement age must be repeated."

There is support from the Greens. National Councillor Katharina Prelicz-Huber is certain: "The increase in the women's retirement age was only accepted by a wafer-thin majority and on the basis of false figures from the Federal Council." President Lisa Mazzone also has clear words: "A year's pension was stolen from women. We cannot let this stand. The vote must be repeated."

Mazzone confirmed to the "Tages-Anzeiger" that the Green Party is submitting a complaint about the vote. In the next few days, the SP Women also want to "examine the political and legal options to hold Parliament and the Federal Council to account", the party's statement continues.

Second vote rather unlikely

From a historical perspective, a repeat of the vote is unlikely to have much chance. The reason: in the past, the Federal Supreme Court has usually shown restraint in such cases. In fact, the Federal Supreme Court has only ever annulled the result of a vote once before.

After the people rejected the CVP initiative "For marriage and family - against the marriage penalty" by 50.8 percent in 2012, it subsequently emerged that the federal government had published incorrect figures on the number of couples affected by the marriage penalty. The Confederation incorrectly put the number of people affected at 80,000, but it later became clear that the correct figure was 454,000.

Although there was also a miscalculation in the vote on AHV, there is a potentially decisive difference this year: the initiative in 2012 was rejected. As a result, the Federal Supreme Court did not have to repeal any new legal norms with its decision. The supreme judges also noted this fact in the Federal Supreme Court's ruling at the time. AHV 21, on the other hand, was accepted and came into force on January 1, 2024.

Three new votes at once?

If the retirement age for women were to be voted on again, new votes would probably also have to be held on the 13th AHV pension and the initiative for a retirement age of 67. This is because all three votes related to the federal government's overestimation of AHV expenditure.

This does not help the SP women. The more laws that have already come into force and the more society has aligned itself with them, the smaller the chances of a referendum result being annulled tend to be. This was demonstrated years ago in the appeal against the vote on Corporate Tax Reform II, when the Federal Supreme Court refrained from annulling the vote, citing the reason that numerous companies had already aligned themselves with the new law.

However, the Greens' appeal should not be without a chance. Markus Kern, professor of constitutional law at the University of Bern, explains to theTages Anzeigernewspaper that the decisive factor is likely to be the extent to which the incorrect calculations were included in the voting information.