mar, Nov 14th 2023
Green Party President Balthasar Glättli is drawing the consequences of his party’s election defeat and will step down from office next spring. He is the face of this defeat. For a new upswing, new forces are needed at the top of the party.
This was announced by the Greens on Tuesday after Swiss Radio (SRF) reported the news. Glättli had originally planned to announce his resignation after the Federal Council elections on December 13 so as not to disrupt Gerhard Andrey’s candidacy for an FDP seat. Now the news has leaked out earlier.
The Zurich National Councillor had already informed the Green Party management of his resignation the day after the national elections on October 22, 2023, as the party wrote. The national executive committee and the parliamentary group were informed at the beginning of November.
“In a party, there is a responsibility to step forward at the right moment and take on challenges,” Glättli was quoted as saying in the press release. “And there is the responsibility to take a step back at the right moment.”
It is now time to pass on the baton, said Glättli in an interview with the Keystone-SDA news agency. The party’s great ambitions for the elections had been missed. The aim was to confirm the glorious election victory in 2019, which was not achieved. “In a way, I am the face of this.”
A detailed analysis of what went wrong will follow. According to Glättli, it is up to his successor to lead the Greens back onto the road to success.
The Greens lost 3.4 percentage points of voter share in the elections. They will have five fewer members in the National Council in the coming legislature. The number of seats in the Council of States is also likely to shrink from five to three.
Part of the electorate switched to the SP four years after the historic climate election, as post-election surveys showed. In contrast to 2019, other Green sympathizers no longer voted. Commenting on these findings, Glättli said in the SRF report that his party had perhaps run an election campaign that was too narrow in its focus.
However, Glättli went on to say that his party’s election defeat was not just down to him personally, just as he was not solely responsible for the Greens’ historic best result in the fall of 2019.
Regarding the succession, Glättli said that he could well imagine a leadership duo. The party leadership should be younger and more female. The decision on the new party leadership will be made by the Green Party delegates at their meeting on April 6, 2024.
According to the party, the ordinary process for the presidential elections is already underway. The executive committee will set up a search committee on November 17 and the national executive committee will form an election committee from its ranks on December 16. A co-presidency is also being discussed.
©Keystone/SDA
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