Beat Jans sees himself as a city representative in the state government
Published: Wednesday, Dec 13th 2023, 12:30
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Beat Jans has been President of the Government of Basel-Stadt for around three years. Now the former National Councillor and Vice President of the SP Switzerland can crown his political career with a seat in the national government. And after fifty years, the 59-year-old has once again won a seat on the Federal Council for Basel-Stadt.
Jans is only the third Federal Councillor from Basel-Stadt since the founding of the modern federal state in 1848. Before him, only Hans-Peter Tschudi (SP; 1959 to 1973) and Ernst Brenner (FDP; 1897 to 1911) from the northern half of the canton had been elected to the federal government.
Jans has been a fixture in local and national politics for over two decades. He received the most votes in both the 2015 and 2019 National Council elections. And in 2020, he made it into the Basel-Stadt government as a newcomer in the first round of voting. Jans' trademarks are his enthusiasm, eloquence and closeness to the people.
Agricultural engineer and environmental scientist
Jans grew up in Riehen BS as the child of a working-class family in a block of flats. He completed an apprenticeship as a farmer and trained as an agricultural engineer before studying environmental sciences at ETH Zurich.
He only joined the Basel SP at the age of 34. Just two years later, he took over the presidency of the cantonal party. Under his leadership, the SP won a third seat in the government. Eva Herzog, who was little known in Basel at the time and is now a member of the Council of States, was elected. Together with the Green Alliance, the left-wing party formed the majority in the seven-member executive - it was the beginning of the almost 16-year era of red-green Basel.
The SP also won seven seats in the Grand Council as the strongest parliamentary group. This success was also due to the fact that Jans integrated migrants into the party - including National Councillor Mustafa Atici, who was voted out of office in October. In addition, the now 59-year-old had already said twenty years ago that more women were needed in government.
Defeat against Roger Nordmann
From 2001, Jans spent ten years as a member of the Basel Grand Council, where he was known for his passionate and sometimes somewhat dogged speeches. In 2010, he replaced the retired Ruedi Rechsteiner in the National Council and quickly made a name for himself throughout Switzerland as an environmental and energy politician. In addition to his political activities, Jans worked for the nature conservation organization Pro Natura and the Basel-based consultancy Ecos.
In 2015, the father of two daughters and previously successful politician suffered a defeat. In his place, the SP in Bern elected Roger Nordmann as parliamentary group president. However, Jans found a new role: he became Vice President of the SP Switzerland in 2016.
He also flirted with running for the Council of States. However, it did not come to an internal party duel against Eva Herzog: Jans withdrew his candidacy. Jans withdrew his candidacy on the grounds that women were in danger of being severely underrepresented in the Council of States.
Image of a farmer's horror
After his re-election as a member of the National Council, Jans ran for the Basel cantonal government in 2020 - and was elected in the first round of voting. When the Green government president Elisabeth Ackermann did poorly in the elections and did not run again, he spontaneously applied for the presidency of the government - although he would actually have preferred to become head of the Department of Economic, Social and Environmental Affairs.
His executive experience made Jans the favorite in the Federal Council elections - as did the fact that Basel-Stadt had not been represented in the Federal Council for fifty years. The fact that he has no longer been a member of the Federal Parliament since the end of 2020 was clearly not too much of a disadvantage for him.
The left-wing agricultural specialist also had the image of a farmer's scaremonger. As a member of the National Council, Jans, who trained as a farmer, had fought for the abolition of animal contributions, among other things. At the hearing before the farmers' lobby at the beginning of the month, he was obviously able to make up points.
©Keystone/SDA
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