Wednesday - December 12, 2007

Swiss Politics Gets Feisty

We'll have to see, but if Blocher isn't voted back into the cabinet, Switzerland's 50 years of "consensus" government might be at an end.

Less than two months after Christoph Blocher led the far-right Swiss People's Party to a comfortable election victory, parliamentarians ejected the controversial justice minister from the cabinet Wednesday.

The vote placed a question mark over the future of Switzerland's system of consensus government. In an election by Parliament of the seven-member Federal Council, which functions as Switzerland's cabinet, lawmakers voted for another SVP member, Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf, perceived as more moderate, over Blocher.

After the vote, the party president, Ueli Maurer, said on Swiss television "either we are in the government with Blocher or we're going into opposition."

The SVP's withdrawal would end the "magic formula" that has divided cabinet seats among the four major parties since 1959.

"The whole system of concordance is what's in question," said Miriam Behrens of the Green Party, one of the parties that voted against Blocher. Read more....

Author: The Machiavellian
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