Biggest Swiss political party quits cabinet
13 December 2007
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Switzerland’s biggest political party quit the cabinet Thursday, ending nearly half a century of government by consensus and opening what analysts see as a period of uncertainty in the previously predictable world of Swiss politics.The rightist Swiss People’s Party announced its decision to go into opposition a day after Parliament voted to remove its preferred candidate, the controversial industrialist Christoph Blocher, from the seven-member Federal Council, which serves as Switzerland’s cabinet.
That decision breaks with the “magic formula” introduced in 1959 by which Switzerland’s biggest political parties have shared out the seats in the Federal Council and taken collective responsibility for government policy.
“This is a shock, it’s the beginning of something new,” said Pierre Weiss, a Geneva assembly member of the center-right Liberal Party. “The outcome is still unpredictable.”
Blocher’s ejection from the council, in which he served for four years as justice minister, was sealed Thursday when the candidate elected by Parliament in his place, Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, accepted her nomination. Widmer-Schlumpf also came from the Swiss People’s Party but the party promptly withdrew its support from her and another Federal Council member from her party, Samuel Schmid, leaving two of the cabinet’s seven members without a parliamentary base.
The leader of the Swiss People’s Party’s parliamentary group, Caspar Baader, told lawmakers, “You have shown your disdain for the will of the voters. You have destroyed our system of values. You will have to pay the price.”
Blocher, a billionaire industrialist whose hard line on immigrants and tough criticism of the European Union helped steer the party to a victory in October elections, said he was quitting the government but not politics and would now be free “to say what I think.”
Far from being weakened, Blocher may gain popular appeal as a victim of secretive party machinations to eject him from the cabinet, Weiss said. Political analysts see Blocher as a strong contender to take over the presidency of the party Ueli Maurer, who has said he intends to step down in 2008.
The Swiss People’s Party is now expected to put pressure on the government, taking advantage of Switzerland’s system of democratic checks and balances, under which individuals can challenge government legislation through referendums if they attract sufficient public support.
As a result, politics in Switzerland’s will lose some of the predictability that has underpinned its stability, said Lucas Golder, an analyst at Gfs.Bern, a political research institute. The party has shown it can gain strong support particularly on relations with the European Union, foreign policy and on immigrant issues, he said.
