not there yet

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FDP politician Elisabeth Kopp became the first woman in the Bundesrat and only served five years in power. Then a secret phone call to her husband forced her to resign. Looking back, the story seems overblown, a media scandal. Not coincidentally, however, Kopp’s reputation had already been damaged a few months earlier. Simply because she was married to a man who turned out to be wrongly suspected of tax fraud. While the Federal Councilor stood alone, the Federal Councilor apparently also had to be in charge of her husband.

The next few years were regularly shown: Switzerland is fighting women in the highest political positions. Instead of the official candidate from the SP, Christiane Brunner, the bourgeois parliamentary majority elected a person to the Bundesrat in 1993. After strong public pressure, he decided not to agree to the election. Ultimately, Ruth Dreyfus was chosen. As a result, the number of active federal councilors has increased dramatically, from zero to one.

In 1999, just 24 years ago, Parliament elected a woman to the Federal Council for the third time: CVP candidate Ruth Metzler. In the next few years, as Minister of Justice, the Appenzell native received all 14 bills through the people – and was still rejected. The CVP knew that with the advent of the SVP, their second seat on the Federal Council was in jeopardy. The party strategists then decided to abandon Metzler in favor of Joseph Deiss. man wins.

The election of a fifth woman to the Federal Council, SVP government adviser Grisons Evelyn Widmer-Schlumpf, was the result of a coup by the SP and CVP against then SVP Federal Council member Christoph Blocher. Your tenure has been marked by demands for his resignation and wild attacks from the SVP.

In recent years, the phenomenon of “women in the Federal Council” has somewhat normalized. Together with Micheline Calmy-Rey (SP), Doris Leuthard (CVP) and Simonetta Sommaruga (SP), there were three women who were relatively quietly elected to the Federal Council – and again resigned of their own accord.

However, the excitement over last year’s successor to Sommarug – keyword: Daniel Jozic’s candidacy – shows that we are still far from achieving our goal. Apparently, for many deputies it is still not a problem if only two of the seven members of the government are women.

In the end, there were three. History does not always repeat itself, fortunately.

Source: Blick