Attacks on Federal Council seats due to controversial magic formula
Published: Sunday, Dec 10th 2023, 14:30
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The Green Party's attack on an FDP seat in the Federal Council is similar to the SVP's blast candidacies in the 2010s. All of these failed. Just like the SVP back then, the Greens see themselves as underrepresented according to their share of the electorate.
As was the case in 2019 with Regula Rytz's attack on Ignazio Cassis, the Greens have decided to launch a contest with Fribourg National Councillor Gerhard Andrey. They want to win one of the two FDP seats because the Greens believe that the Free Democrats are overrepresented in the Federal Council.
However, it is extremely rare for an incumbent Federal Councillor to be overthrown. Since 1848, this has only happened four times. Two cases even date back to the 19th century: Ulrich Ochsenbein from Bern was not re-elected in 1845. In 1872 it was Jean-Jacques Challet-Venel from Geneva.
Blocher's election and non-re-election
Less recent is the case of CVP Federal Councillor Ruth Metzler, who was forced out of office by SVP patriarch Christoph Blocher in 2003. At that time, the SVP's election successes indicated that one of the two CVP members of government would fail to be re-elected.
The party had just fallen below 15 percent of the electorate, while the SVP became the strongest party under the Federal Palace dome for the first time in 2003 and claimed a second seat in the name of concordance.
However, Blocher himself was not re-elected four years later. The plan was devised by the red-green camp with the support of the CVP. The Zurich native was controversial due to his lack of collegiality in the government and lost to Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf by 115 votes to 125. The event led to a crisis within the SVP.
SVP blast candidacies after 2008
The SVP and its two elected members of the Federal Council then parted company. The Grisons native and Samuel Schmid from Bern switched to the BDP banner. From June to December 2008, when Schmid resigned, the SVP, which represented almost 29% of the electorate in parliament, was not represented in the Federal Council.
The election of Ueli Maurer to the Federal Council was not enough to heal these wounds. The SVP repeatedly demanded that the magic formula no longer be adhered to. In September 2010, the party contested the two seats vacated by Moritz Leuenberger (SP) and Hans-Rudolf Merz (FDP) with former National Councillor Jean-François Rime (FR).
In December 2011, the SVP tried again with the same candidate after failing to force Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf out of office. Rime fought for several seats held by incumbent federal councillors. But each time without success. Following Widmer-Schlumpf's resignation, parliament finally returned to a more faithful representation of the parties' electoral strength in 2015.
SP women under fire
In recent history, there have been further attacks by parties against official candidates for women's candidacies. The right in particular did not hesitate to take action against women from the SP.
In 1993, the Geneva trade unionist Christiane Brunner, the official SP candidate, was overtaken by her party colleague Francis Matthey from Neuchâtel. The latter finally renounced his election a week later - another rarity in the country's history.
Ten years earlier, Zurich SP politician Lilian Uchtenhagen was the first woman to run for the Federal Council and lost out. She was unpopular with the right and was ousted in favor of the more consensus-oriented Otto Stich from Solothurn. Incidentally, it was in this context that the "Night of the Long Knives" was first mentioned in Switzerland.
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