Federal Council elections

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The votes are counted in the Federal Council room.

As Federal elections in which it is Switzerland the election of members of the state government, the Federal Council called. The Federal Council elections are regulated by legal provisions in the Federal Constitution and the Parliament Act as well as by informal agreements on the allocation of seats such as the magic formula practiced from 1959 to 2003 . The elections are carried out by the United Federal Assembly .

A distinction must be made between the general renewal elections for the Federal Council and the replacement elections to fill vacancies. The general election of the Federal Council takes place every four years, in the first session after the general election of the National Council . All seven Federal Council seats will be awarded. If there is a vacancy because an individual Federal Councilor resigns or dies during the term of office, a successor will be elected separately, but this successor will only be elected until the next general election. Every year, the Federal Assembly appoints the Federal President and the Vice-President of the Federal Council for the coming year from the Federal Council members .

Last elections

The current composition of the Federal Council since January 1, 2019 is based on the general election of the Federal Council on December 9, 2015 and the replacement elections on September 20, 2017 and December 5, 2018 . At the latter, Viola Amherd ( CVP ) and Karin Keller-Sutter ( FDP ) were elected to replace the resigned Federal Councilors Johann Schneider-Ammann (FDP) and Doris Leuthard (CVP). For an overview of all elections see the overview bar at the end of the article and for an overview of all previous Federal Councilors and various statistics, the list of members of the Swiss Federal Council .

procedure

The National Council Chamber in the Federal Palace in Bern

On the day of the Federal Council election , the United Federal Assembly gathers in the National Council chamber . The President of the National Council holds the chairmanship, his deputy is the President of the Council of States. The National Councilors take their usual seats, the 46 seats for the Council of States are at the back of the wall.

After the opening of the meeting, in the event of a resignation, there will be a laudation by the President of the National Council and a short address by the resigning member of the government. Afterwards, the chairmen of the parties represented in parliament usually come to the lectern and announce the election recommendation of their respective party. Further requests to speak, also by the candidates, are possible. Then the election begins.

In accordance with the Parliament Act (see below), the election is secret. Different colored slips of paper are handed out for each ballot to prevent election fraud . After each ballot, the chairman reads out the result. The new Federal Council must be elected with an absolute majority of the valid votes cast. From the second ballot onwards, candidates with fewer than 10 votes will be eliminated, and from the third round onwards, those with the lowest number of votes will be eliminated.

Once a candidate has been elected, the chairman asks him whether he wants to accept the election. If the elected person is not a member of the Federal Assembly, the assembly is usually interrupted until the person concerned is present. In rare cases it has also happened that an elected member asked for time to think and therefore the meeting was adjourned. If he finally declares acceptance of the election, the swearing-in follows immediately.

The or, in the case of re-election, the elected, accompanied by the federal woman, appear before the assembly. Here they take the oath of office . After that, they are officially titled “Mr Bundesrat” or “Frau Bundesratin”.

Statutory Regulations

The legal provisions for elections to the Federal Council can be found, in particular, in Art. 175 of the Federal Constitution and in Art. 132–133 Parliament Act, whereby the general provisions for elections in accordance with Art. 130 and 131 Parliament Act must also be observed.

Electoral body
The electoral body is the United Federal Assembly , i.e. the 200 national councilors and the 46 councilors of states .
Election date
The general renewal elections take place in the first session after the general renewal elections of the National Council. As a rule, a vacancy must be filled in the session after receipt of the letter of resignation or after the unexpected departure.
Term of office
A term of office is four years (from the beginning of the National Council's legislative period). When filling a vacancy, the Federal Council concerned is elected until the next general renewal elections.
Re-election
Re-election is possible as often as desired and is usually practiced. So far, only four incumbent Federal Councilors who have run again have not been re-elected: Ulrich Ochsenbein (1854), Jean-Jacques Challet-Venel (1872), Ruth Metzler-Arnold ( 2003 ), Christoph Blocher ( 2007 ).
Impeachment
There is no vote of no confidence . It does happen, however, that federal councilors who are under considerable political and public pressure resign themselves.
Voting order
The federal councilors are elected individually according to the principle of seniority . The previous Federal Councilors are running for general renewal elections in the order of their age in office; the longest serving Federal Council is therefore the first to be elected. Seats that have become vacant will be filled according to the seniority of the previous incumbent; the seat of the Federal Council with the longest term of office will be filled first.
The fact that the federal councilors are elected individually increases the possibility of electoral tactics. For parties that still have candidates in the election, it can be an advantage not to provoke any other parties in the elections beforehand in order to avoid "retreats". A chain reaction took place in 1973 when three unofficial candidates, Willy Ritschard , Hans Hürlimann and Georges-André Chevallaz, were elected one after the other.
Voting
The voting is secret.
Prohibition of instruction
The voters are not bound by instructions.
Required more
An absolute majority of the valid votes cast is required for a valid election. To determine the absolute majority, the empty and invalid ballot papers are not counted.
Ballots
  • If no candidate reaches an absolute majority in the first ballot, further ballots will be held until a candidate has been elected with an absolute majority.
  • However, no new candidates may be nominated after the third ballot.
  • From the second ballot onwards, those candidates who have received fewer than 10 votes are eliminated.
  • From the third ballot onwards, the candidate who has received the fewest votes (even if he has received more than 10 votes) is also eliminated.
eligibility
  • Any Swiss citizen who is eligible for election to the National Council is eligible for election. The prerequisites are therefore Swiss citizenship, the completion of the 18th year of life and the lack of incapacitation due to mental illness or mental weakness. A residence in Switzerland is not necessary at the time of the election.
  • All “country areas” and “language regions” should be adequately represented. Up until 1999, the federal constitution contained a “cantonal clause” according to which only one member could be elected from the same canton; The decisive factor in determining the canton was initially the place of citizenship , later the municipality of residence.

Seat allocation agreements

A peculiarity of the political system in Switzerland is that the people can vote on important political issues. As a result, a strong opposition could lead to a political blockade. To ensure that this does not happen, care is taken that all large groups are appropriately involved in the government:

Parties (magic formula)

From the founding of the federal state in 1848 to 1890, the radical liberal party family (today the FDP, The Liberals ) occupied all seven Federal Council seats. In 1891 the Catholic Conservatives (now CVP ) received a first seat and a second in 1919. In 1929 a representative of the BGB (now SVP ) joined the Federal Council. In 1943, for the first time, a Social Democrat occupied a Federal Council seat at the expense of the Liberals, which the SP voluntarily gave up in 1953. The seat was initially returned to the Liberals, then to the CVP in 1954. In 1959 the “ magic formula ” was established as an informal agreement . According to this formula, the three parties with the largest number of voters, SP, FDP and CVP, were allowed two each and the fourth-largest party, SVP, could claim a seat in the Federal Council. This composition remained unchanged until 2003. Then one seat changed from the CVP to the SVP after it had become the party with the largest number of voters. The new composition of the 2: 2: 2: 1 formula was sometimes called the “new magic formula” or simply “magic formula”. Since the two SVP representatives joined the BDP in 2008 , the distribution of seats no longer corresponds to the (new) magic formula. The SVP captured one of the BDP's seats again at the end of 2008 and wanted to get back the second seat in the elections at the end of 2011 and thus reinstall the (new) magic formula. At that time, however, this was denied her by parliament and only succeeded in 2015 through the election of Guy Parmelin .

In the case of new Federal Council seats to be filled, the party to which the mandate according to the magic formula is entitled nominated an official candidate while the magic formula was working. It was common practice to present an alternative candidate to the Federal Assembly for selection. However, the Federal Assembly is free to elect other people, which it did, especially in the case of the governing parties on the edge of the spectrum (SP left and SVP right).

languages

Although there were no official requirements for this until 1999, attention was always paid to a balanced representation of the three official languages ​​German, French and Italian.

  • The Italian-speaking Switzerland was mostly represented in the Bundesrat, despite their comparatively small proportion of the population (absences after 1911: 1951-1954, 1960-1966, 1974-1986, 1999-2017)
  • In accordance with their weak population base (less than 1% of the resident population), the Rhaeto-Romanic population had only one Federal Councilor, Felix Calonder (1913–1920). The Graubünden Federal Councilor Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf , who was in office from 2008 to 2015, speaks fluent Romansh because of her grandparents in Romansh, but her first language is Swiss German.
  • The following distributions were and are most common:
    • 4 German speakers: 2 French speakers: 1 Italian speaker
    • 5 German speakers: 2 French speakers
  • Other constellations were less common, for example:
    • 5 German speakers: 1 French speaker: 1 Italian speaker (1848–1864, 1934–1947, 1967–1970)
    • 6 German speakers: 1 French speaker (1876–1880)
    • 4 German speakers: 3 French speakers (1960–1962, 1999–2006, although it has recently become difficult to clearly assign the Federal Councilors, for example the bilingual Friborg Joseph Deiss)
  • The following composition is interesting because it is the only time so far that the German-speaking Swiss have not held a majority in the Federal Council:
    • 3 German speakers: 2 French speakers: 1 Italian speaker: 1 Romansh (1917–1919)

Regional representation

Although this was not anchored in the constitution until 1999, it was always ensured that at least in the medium term all regions of Switzerland were regularly represented.

  • The cantons ( Zurich , Bern and Vaud ) made up 39 of the 119 federal councilors to date; in every term of office they are almost always represented in the Federal Council. These cantons were mostly not represented only as a punitive sanction after particularly controversial Federal Councilors or because none of the proposed candidates from this canton could convince parliament:
  • The Eastern Switzerland had always at least one representative in the Federal Council to the 2015th
  • The Northwestern Switzerland is, however, since 1995, after the resignation of Otto sting from the Solothurn Dornach , no longer represented in the Bundesrat. The last representatives of Basel-Stadt were Hans-Peter Tschudi (1959–1973) and Emil Frey (1890–1897).
  • The representation of Central Switzerland is less continuous : it is mostly guaranteed by a Federal Council from the most populous canton of Lucerne , but there have always been larger gaps, the last one has existed since 2004. The three original cantons have only been able to provide one Federal Council so far, namely Ludwig von Moos as Obwalden representative of the CVP .
  • The Federal Councilors Giuseppe Motta and Enrico Celio are worth mentioning . They represented the canton of Ticino for 38 years (1912 to 1950) without interruption.
  • The distribution by city / country in the Federal Council does not correspond to the population structure: in 2008 only two out of seven Federal Councilors came from a larger city.

Denominations

At the beginning of the state, the distribution of denominations in the Bundesrat was important against the background of the Sonderbund War . In the 19th century, Catholics usually had two federal councilors. After the Catholic Conservatives entered the government, the Catholics were usually represented by this party. Today the denomination of a Federal Council is hardly taken into account. In 1993, Ruth Dreifuss was the first person of Jewish origin to become a Federal Councilor.

Principle of the "home country"

For a long time, the principle of “ home countries ” applied, according to which no Federal Council could be elected from a canton in which its party only held a minority position. This particularly affected the Catholic cantons of Central Switzerland and Valais , where the CVP was the undisputed leader until the end of the 20th century.

Women's representation

After women's suffrage had only been introduced at federal level in 1971, it took until 1983 for a woman ( Lilian Uchtenhagen ) to be nominated as a candidate for the first time , but Otto Stich was elected (see proportions of women in the Federal Council from 1971 ). In the following year, the political pressure was strong enough that the free-thinking Elisabeth Kopp was elected for the first time. After Kopp's resignation in 1989 in the course of the Kopp affair , Kaspar Villiger was re-elected as a man. At the next vacancy in 1993, Christiane Brunner was nominated by the SP . Finally, Francis Matthey , who is considered less left-wing , was elected; However, under pressure from his party, the latter refused to accept the election, so that Parliament - even under strong public pressure - elected Ruth Dreifuss . On March 11, 1999 Ruth Metzler was elected to the Federal Council, which means that two women had a seat in the Federal Council. From 2004 to June 14, 2006, only one woman ( Micheline Calmy-Rey , SP) sat in the Federal Council after the CVP woman Ruth Metzler was replaced by Christoph Blocher from the SVP in response to a change in the voting power . On June 14, 2006, Doris Leuthard (CVP) was again elected to the Federal Council as a second woman, and on December 12, 2007, Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf (SVP, now BDP ), a third woman for the first time. On September 22, 2010, with Simonetta Sommaruga (SP), a female majority was achieved for the first time with four female federal councilors, which was lost again after Micheline Calmy-Rey left (at the end of 2011). On December 5, 2018, Viola Amherd was elected as successor to Doris Leuthard (CVP) and Karin Keller-Sutter (FDP) to succeed Johan Schneider-Ammann (FDP) . This means that three women have again been represented in the Federal Council since 2019.

Age

There are no agreements on age. However, since Federal Council candidates are expected to have many years of political experience, Federal Councilors are rarely younger than 50 when they take office. In December 2007, the average age was 61 years and after the general election of 2008 it fell to just under 59 years. More recently, Ruth Metzler was the youngest member of the government; she was 35 years old when she took office. Only Jakob Stämpfli (elected in 1854 at the age of 34) and Numa Droz (1875, at the age of 31) were younger .

Consequences of the regulations and agreements

Because attention is paid to the party-political composition and for a long time at most one Federal Council per canton could be elected, and because Federal Councilors usually step down alone and previous ones are re-elected, the cantonal party with a Federal Council could hold the respective seat for a long time, for example the SVP the «Berner Seat". As a result, SVP candidates from other cantons and Bernese candidates from other parties had little chance of being elected, even if they would have been equally good candidates. It also happened that candidates moved to another canton in order to be able to accept the election. This happened, for example, in the replacement election of 1993 , when the Neuchâtel Social Democrat Francis Matthey was elected with the votes of the bourgeois parties, and the official candidate of the SP, Christiane Brunner from Geneva, was second - it was just expected from the left that a woman would be elected should be. In order to defuse the situation, Matthey asked in the interests of his party to reflect, and ultimately did not accept the election. Ruth Dreifuss , regarded by all sides as acceptable , then quickly moved her residence from Wabern BE to Geneva, where she grew up, so as not to get in the way of the Bernese Federal Councilor Adolf Ogi (SVP).

Media coverage

The considerable political effects and the repeated surprising election results turn the Federal Council elections into major media events. There is speculation in advance about possible plans and alliances. Often the night before the Federal Council elections, voting behavior is discussed, which is why it is also known as the “ night of long knives ”. The Swiss television transmits the Federal Council elections regularly live, despite its beginning at 7:30 in the morning. The non-re-election of Ruth Metzler (election of Christoph Blocher) on December 10, 2003 saw an average of 875,000 viewers, the non-re-election of Blocher (election of Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf) on December 12, 2007 saw 616,000 people. In the election of Micheline Calmy-Rey (2002) there were 450,100 viewers. This corresponds to 11.7, 8.2 and 6 percent of the total population.

Aspirations for a popular election

In the years 1890 and 1942, the Social Democratic Party (SP) launched popular initiatives to introduce popular elections for the Federal Council and increase it to nine members. Both initiatives were clearly rejected.

In the context of the discussion of a government reform, the Federal Council examined the popular election in 2002, but spoke out against it. He justified his position with the fact that in a popular election it would no longer be possible to include the various criteria such as membership of party, language, part of the country and gender in the election. In addition, the position of the Bundesrat as a collegial authority would be impaired.

In 2010, the Swiss People's Party (SVP) relaunched the idea with its “Popular election of the Federal Council” initiative , after the composition of the Federal Council had again become the focus of political discussion with the end of the magic formula .

An indirect form of popular election existed with the election of compliments in the second half of the 19th century: incumbent federal councilors ran for national councilors in order to have their legitimacy as government members confirmed by those entitled to vote; only then was re-election by the Federal Assembly.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wording of Art. 175 BV. Swiss Confederation, February 7, 1999, accessed November 30, 2011 .
  2. ^ Wording of the Parliament Act. Swiss Confederation, November 1, 2011, accessed December 14, 2011 .
  3. ↑ Benno Gämperle: A “tremendous” evening with Eveline Widmer . In: St.Galler Tagblatt . November 20, 2010 ( tagblatt.ch [accessed on November 18, 2018]).
  4. ↑ a b Urs Altermatt: Federal Council. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
  5. ↑ Now it's Basel's turn: finally give us our Federal Council seat on Barfi.ch
  6. ↑ According to his own statement , Kaspar Villiger (FDP) did not think of an election to the Federal Council for a long time because of his origin from the CVP canton of Lucerne ( Kaspar Villiger: Federal Councilor Kaspar Villiger - Farewell to the Lucerne FDP . december 2003 accessed November 30, 2011 . )
  7. ↑ sda / halp: Federal Council slightly younger. Swiss television, December 13, 2007, accessed November 30, 2011 .
  8. ^ Rico Bandle: Popular election on TV: Cola Chips and Ueli Maurer. Tages-Anzeiger, December 9, 2008, accessed November 30, 2011 .
  9. ↑ Federal Council: Message on government reform. (PDF; 326 kB) Swiss Confederation, December 19, 2001, accessed on November 30, 2011 .
  10. ↑ Paul Fink: The election of compliments of incumbent Federal Councilors in the National Council 1851-1896 . In: Swiss History Journal . tape 45 , no. 2 . Swiss Society for History , 1995, ISSN  0036-7834 , p. 214–235 , doi : 10.5169 / seals-81131 .