Federal Council election 2008

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Official candidates
Christoph Blocher
Ueli Maurer
Luc Recordon
The Federal Council photo with the new Federal Councilor Ueli Maurer
The old Federal Council photo with Samuel Schmid

In the Federal Council elections in 2008 on December 10, 2008, Ueli Maurer ( SVP ) was elected by the United Federal Assembly as a replacement for the resigned Samuel Schmid in the Swiss Federal Council. Maurer was next to Christoph Blocher from the House of Parliament Group was formally proposed by the SVP and was in the third ballot with exactly the for the absolute majority elected necessary 122 votes. Maurer took over the Federal Department of Defense, Civil Protection and Sport from his predecessor .

The Swiss Federal Council has been elected according to the unwritten rules of concordance since 1959 , although the exact interpretation of these rules varies. Since the Swiss People's Party (SVP) revoked its Federal Councilors Samuel Schmid and Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf after Christoph Blocher was voted out of office on December 12, 2007, and joined the self-elected opposition, it was no longer represented in the state government.

In the run-up to the elections, the three parties SP , FDP and CVP pledged to concordance and granted the SVP the right to be represented in the government; It was criticized, however, that the two proposed candidates, Blocher and Maurer, were not properly selected. Especially since the SVP has stipulated in its statutes that candidates who have not been nominated by the parliamentary group will be excluded from the party if the election is accepted.

Parties / groupings

Swiss People's Party

Shortly after Schmid's resignation, the Swiss People's Party announced that it would put forward a candidate for the successor election. She justified this with the concordance, according to which she "as the strongest party in parliament has a right to the appropriate representation in the state government". From the outset, however, the SVP stipulated that the candidate must bring their ideas “fully” into the Federal Council.

Various cantonal parties proposed their candidates to the management. The Bernese Cantonal Party nominated Adrian Amstutz and Andreas Aebi , the Junge SVP nominated Bernese City Councilor Erich Hess and the Zurich Cantonal Party nominated the former Federal Councilor Christoph Blocher . The management described Christoph Blocher several times as the “most capable man” for the Federal Council; Renowned media, including the St. Galler Tagblatt and the Tages-Anzeiger, assessed his chances of voting as low after he was not re-elected in the 2007 Federal Council elections .

On November 26, 2008, the SVP's parliamentary group committee recommended the parliamentary group the «Christoph Blocher Plus» two-way ticket, which meant that Christoph Blocher was the first candidate, but left the second name open. The next day, the SVP parliamentary group elected Ueli Maurer as a further candidate. A demolition candidate was considered unlikely, since according to the SVP statutes, federal councilors are excluded from the party if they accept an election that is not supported by the SVP parliamentary group. Hansjörg Walter was traded as a possible candidate because he left open an acceptance of the election.

Green party

The Green Party of Switzerland was the only party besides the SVP to propose another candidate in the run-up to the election: As in the 2007 Federal Council elections , it ran with Luc Recordon, the Vaudois Council of States .

The party said in advance that it wanted to prevent " Christoph Blocher or one of his adlates from returning to the Federal Council". Luc Recordon, however, envisions another scenario with a more promising candidate, he testified after the hearing with the Social Democratic Party. He would withdraw his candidacy in the event of such a candidacy by another person.

Social Democratic Party

The Social Democratic Party of Switzerland (SP) took note of Samuel Schmid's resignation and justified this with the fact that Schmid was "systematically torpedoed" by his former SVP party, and it is not surprising that Samuel Schmid "no longer wants to serve as a whipping boy ». In its official statement, the SP also announced that it was fundamentally committed to concordance, but made support for the SVP candidates dependent on the SVP “adhering to the central values ​​of Switzerland, such as the rule of law , the principle of the separation of powers and the Commitments from international treaties »confesses and sets up people capable of concordance. After the hearing of the Social Democratic parliamentary group with the two SVP Federal Council candidates, they decided not to support either Maurer or Blocher with votes. However, she did not guarantee support for the Green candidate Luc Recordon, the faction wanted to decide on alternatives on Wednesday morning before the Federal Council election.

«Group 13»

The Group 13 is a grouping of several national and Councilors, which was established by the Federal Council 2007 elections of members of the national political commission of the National Council. According to Andreas Gross , the group is "an open discussion circle" whose members are convinced that an alternative to the SVP candidates Ueli Maurer and Christoph Blocher is necessary. According to Kurt Fluri , the task of the group is to redefine the concordance. The question arises whether the Federal Council seats should only be after seats in the Federal Assembly (mathematical concordance) or whether the Federal Councilors should also meet minimum programmatic requirements (content-related concordance). In addition to Gross and Fluri, the SP National Councilors Roger Nordmann , Andy Tschümperlin , Eric Nussbaumer and Greens President Ueli Leuenberger belong to the group; The FDP Councilors of State Christine Egerszegi and Dick Marty would be close to the group . The number 13 stands for the cross-sum of the date Christoph Blocher was voted out.

The vote

Samuel Schmid during the lecture of the declaration of resignation
Walter in his explanation

On the night of the long knives on the eve of the Federal Council election, Hansjörg Walter was traded as a demolition candidate. The aim was to offer an alternative to the proposed two-ticket ticket. Since Walter, as President of the Swiss Farmers' Association, represented a significant part of the SVP base and electorate, there was hope that the automatic exclusion would be reversed in the event of an election acceptance by a parliamentary group resolution, since Walter's exclusion would result in splits like after Blocher was voted out could. His vague rejection in the media reinforced the belief that he had found a viable alternative. Walter was not officially ported by any parliamentary group.

The second session of the United Federal Assembly in the 2008 winter session was opened by the Secretary General of the Federal Assembly, Christoph Lanz , who read out the Federal Assembly's letter of resignation. In it, Samuel Schmid gave reasons «personal, health, but also political» as the reason for his resignation. The reading of the letter of resignation was followed by the appreciation of Samuel Schmid's work by the President of the National Council, Chiara Simoneschi-Cortesi . Finally, Samuel Schmid gave his farewell speech, visibly moved. He criticized the tendency to polemics and polarization in politics, which he does not recognize as an expression of the zeitgeist, since in his view polemics and fundamental polarization do not belong to political culture. After his speech was answered with a standing ovation, the Federal Councilors left the National Council chamber to watch the election from the Federal President's room.

Before the actual election, Hansjörg Walter stepped to the lectern and explained to the united Federal Assembly that he was not available as a candidate and would reject any election. He stood by the concordance and said that it was a "very important decision" to reinstate the Swiss People's Party in government. In this respect, he recommended that the Federal Assembly elect Ueli Maurer in his place. Despite this declaration, Walter received 109 votes in the first ballot, Ueli Maurer 67 votes and Christoph Blocher 54 votes. He therefore missed the absolute majority of 121 votes. It is not known how many MPs voted for Luc Recordon, as candidates who receive fewer than ten votes are listed under "Various".

After the first ballot, Luc Recordon came to the microphone first: he suspended his candidacy and asked to vote for Walter instead. Christoph Blocher got 54 votes less than Maurer (67). Caspar Baader , parliamentary group president of the SVP, withdrew his candidacy in favor of Maurer on behalf of Blocher, whereby a slip of the tongue regarding the person who actually made this request caused amusement.

In the second ballot, the votes were then divided between the two candidates Maurer and Walter. Most of the votes for Blocher seem to have passed to Maurer, but most of the "different" votes to Walter. So Walter was still ahead of Maurer, but only two votes ahead. Since the parliamentary law stipulates that after the second ballot only candidates who received more than ten votes in the previous ballot may be elected, only Walter and Maurer could be elected in the third ballot.

Mason at his swearing-in

In the third ballot, Maurer won with 122 votes and one vote ahead of the absolute majority and Walter. He went to the lectern and announced the acceptance of the election. For his swearing in , he chose the traditional formula of oath with invocation to God: "I swear before God Almighty to observe the constitution and the laws and to conscientiously fulfill the duties of my office."

After he was sworn in, Maurer held a first informal meeting with his new Federal Council colleagues; shortly afterwards he announced that he would be head of the Federal Department of Defense, Civil Protection and Sport .

Candidates 1st ballot 2nd ballot 3rd ballot
Ueli Maurer Ueli Maurer 67 119 122
Hansjörg Walter Hansjörg Walter 109 121 121
Christoph Blocher Christoph Blocher 54 0-2 -
Luc Recordon Luc Recordon 0-9 0-2 -
Other 11 2 0
Ballot papers received 244 244 244
Invalid ballot paper 1 1 0
Blank ballot paper 2 1 1
Valid ballot papers 241 242 243
Absolute more 121 122 122

Following Maurer's election, Hans-Rudolf Merz was elected Federal President with 185 votes (various: 24) and Doris Leuthard was elected Vice President with 173 votes (Ueli Maurer: 12, various: 13) for 2009.

Web links

Commons : Federal Council election 2008  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Media information admin.ch http://www.admin.ch/br/aktuell/00091/index.html?lang=de&msg-id=23885
  2. ↑ svp.ch: SVP competes in Schmid's replacement election! ( Memento of March 23, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on November 18, 2008
  3. ↑ svp.ch: Schmid's successor: SVP Group nominated candidates on 27 November ( Memento of 22 March 2016 Internet Archive ), called November 18, 2008
  4. ^ Neue Zürcher Zeitung : Berner SVP suggests Amstutz and Aebi , November 17, 2008
  5. ↑ news.search.ch: Young SVP wants Erich Hess as Federal Councilor  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , dated November 14, 2008@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / news.search.ch  
  6. ↑ svp.ch: Parties have to show their colors ( memento from January 31, 2016 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on November 18, 2008
  7. ↑ svp.ch: Group unanimously nominated two ticket with Blocher and Maurer ( Memento of 24 March 2016 Internet Archive ), of 27 November 2008
  8. ↑ tagesanzeiger.ch: Maurer on the move to the Federal Council
  9. ↑ a b c swissinfo.ch: Scarce CVP support for bricklayers - SP does not elect a candidate  ( page can no longer be accessed , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , dated December 9, 2008@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.swissinfo.ch  
  10. ↑ sp-ps.ch: SP takes note of Federal Councilor Schmid's resignation , on November 12, 2008
  11. ↑ nzz.ch: SVP critics form "Group 13" , from November 30, 2008
  12. ^ Admin.ch: Speech by Hansjörg Walter
  13. ↑ a b admin.ch: SR 171.10 Art. 132 para. 4
  14. ^ Admin.ch: Speech by Caspar Baader
  15. ↑ admin.ch: Federal Councilor Maurer becomes head of the DDPS from 10 December 2008
  16. ↑ a b c How many votes went to Luc Recordon in the first two ballots and to Christoph Blocher in the second ballot is unclear. Candidates who received less than 10 votes are classified under “others”.
  17. ↑ The Federal Assembly has a total of 246 people, on that day Ernst Leuenberger and Christoph Mörgeli were absent for health reasons.