Ticino voters reject fascists in 1935 election

Fascists won no seats in Ticino’s 1935 election, despite efforts to spread Mussolini’s ideology from Italy into the Swiss canton, Swiss public broadcaster SRF reported. Just 546 of 47,000 voters backed the movement led by Arthur Fonjallaz and Nino Rezzonico.

Fascism emerged in Italy after the First World War. Benito Mussolini promised order and national renewal, while fascist groups attacked political opponents and workers’ organisations. After taking power in 1922, he built a dictatorship in which censorship stifled the press and opponents were persecuted.

The movement crossed the border into Switzerland. In May 1921, Italian emigrants in Lugano formed the first Italian fascist combat group abroad. In 1933, a nationwide Swiss fascist movement was established under Vaud Colonel Arthur Fonjallaz, with Rezzonico representing Ticino.

On 14 December 1933, the first issue of Il Fascista Svizzero, the newspaper of the fascist federation in Ticino, was published. It covered the movement’s political programme, local branches and women’s groups, as well as family events and songs. The paper promoted what it called a “perfected democracy”, while criticising established parties and associating press freedom with “defeatism”. It borrowed democratic language while challenging political freedoms and pluralism.

Fascist politics also took shape in social settings. In Mendrisio, a group called the “Musi duri”, or “hard heads”, posed together to express its unity. In Lugano, Bar Argentino owner Elvezio Grassi decorated a room with portraits of Mussolini. The movement also held children’s celebrations, including a Three Kings’ Day event where gifts linked family care with propaganda.

Ticino in the 1930s was marked by tensions over its Italian identity and its place in Switzerland. Some fascists favoured annexation by Italy, others saw Mussolini’s dictatorship as a model, and some sought a specifically Ticinese version of fascism. But the movement failed to win broad support: in 1935, it secured no seats in the cantonal Grand Council.