Peter Riebli secures the presidency of the divided SVP Baselland, marking a new chapter for the party amidst controversies and internal disputes.
KEYSTONE/Georgios Kefalas
Peter Riebli is to become the new president of the divided SVP Baselland. The party members elected him with 180 votes at the general assembly in Aesch on Thursday evening.
This put him ahead of the second candidate, Johannes Sutter, who received 130 votes. Just two weeks ago, Riebli was dismissed as parliamentary group leader in the Basel district council.
The reason for this scandal was internal party conflicts. After his dismissal, Riebli decided to run for the presidency.
Riebli, who in contrast to the more moderate Sutter is considered to belong to the right wing of the party, is now taking over from the retiring Dominik Straumann.
“Our party has nothing to do with extremism, with anything that is outside our democratic legal system – regardless of whether this extremism is on the right or the left,” said Riebli in his speech before the ballot.
Riebli is a retired district councillor and former head of Syngenta-Werke Nordwestschweiz. He was also President of the District Council in 2019/20.
The pro-Riebli camp was able to mobilise strongly at the Annual General Meeting in the Löhrenacker multi-purpose hall in Aesch.
Well-known party representatives such as National Councillor Thomas de Courten, former National Councillor Caspar Baader and former Government Councillor Thomas Weber pledged their support for him.
Regez himself said that Riebli enjoys great trust “among the young people” in the party. Riebli is considered a supporter of Sarah Regez, strategy chief of the Young Swiss SVP.
At the end of March, “Sonntagsblick” reported that Regez had taken part in a secret meeting with Austrian right-wing extremist Martin Sellner in May 2023, which was also attended by members of the far-right group “Junge Tat”.
After counting a total of 313 ballot papers, 3 of which were invalid, Riebli ultimately won the race by a clear margin.
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