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Markus Ritter is satisfied, the week was successful. “We would have lost the 3.5 percent in the previous parliamentary term. 100 percent.” He means the goal for biodiversity-promoting areas – an important environmental goal. On Monday, the National Council postponed this for another year. By 119 votes to 68. It is “a world of difference,” says Ritter, the “margin de maneuver ‘ is much bigger, the ‘touch’ in the National Council is completely different.
Ritter (56), centrist national councilor, organic farmer and farmers’ president since 2012, is the brains of the most powerful Swiss lobby. And one of the most powerful men in Federal Bern.
As farmers’ president, he fights tirelessly against efforts for greater environmental protection in agriculture. He blocked the pesticides, drinking water and factory farming initiative, blocked the 22+ agricultural policy and spent millions of dollars on agriculture despite the austerity mandate.
Seven secrets to your success
How does he do that? There are seven secrets, says Ritter.
First, have a goal, a strategy and, above all, the right tactics to achieve it. Ritter’s goal: Everything for “his” farmers. He wants to keep agricultural Switzerland as it is and prevent the ecological transition. Many conventional farmers see what makes sense from an ecological perspective mainly as extra bureaucracy. The end justifies many means. In 2022, Ritter entered into an alliance with the business associations – Economiesuisse, trade association, employers’ association – which were ridiculed by the left as a ‘money and meadow alliance’. The FDP helped him to stop the green agricultural reform. In return, the farmers’ association issued slogans against the corporate responsibility initiative. A horse trade.
Behind the polite man – he apologizes for being two minutes late – there is someone who wants to win, you soon notice that. Even at school, Ritter always wanted to be the best. The few who have argued with him – such as Green National Councilor and Small Farmers’ Association president Kilian Baumann – say the substance is secondary to Ritter.
Always prepared
Ritter is a master of tactics – the basis for this lies in his second secret: know the formal procedures. “You have to know how the game goes,” he says. How do debates, reconciliation of differences and cooperation with the Federal Council work?
Ritter prevented agricultural reforms – with political tricks and counter-deals, but also with secret number three: know the material. “If you really want to appear strong, you should ideally know ten times more than your opponents.” The magic word is hard work, and Ritter has made it his mission: study every agricultural policy proposal down to the footnote and recite entire sentences with page numbers. The numbers are weaponized. Learns fluent French for the association and reads the speech of thanks in Romansh. Gets up at half past five and is usually one of the first in the Federal Palace during the session.
Interested in majorities and solutions
Hard work is followed by unity. Fourth secret. The trick is to find the greatest common denominator. This is the only way to win. “If you don’t agree, it’s better to do nothing.”
Ritter likes to calculate, especially in majorities. That’s what brings him into politics. When he was twenty, his older brother took him to a CVP meeting, Ritter became an auditor (the numbers!) and ran an election campaign for a farmer. He realizes he’s good at it. At the age of 25, he became a municipal councilor in Altstätten, studied industrial engineering and was elected member of Bern on his third attempt in 2011.
In the municipality he is the one who leads the difficult objection negotiations and almost always reaches a solution. “What fascinated me was not communicating my opinion, but finding majorities and solutions,” says Ritter.
What Ritter doesn’t say, but which may also be part of the fourth secret: keep your ranks closed. It is said from agricultural circles that since the alliance with the economy, the wind has changed in the farmers’ association. Anyone who represents even slightly a different position will be treated with hostility. The first farmer victim is Kilian Baumann, who was excluded from the conference of rural parliamentarians – and heard about it through the media. The signal to the newcomers is clear, says Baumann: “If you get out of line, you will be cut off.”
100% – always
However, the unit evaporates without speed. “In this house, the faster you eat, always the slower, never the bigger the smaller.” Say it and repeat it. If you want to win, says Ritter, you have to “play the game fast”: you already know the answer to the new question. Preferably before it is asked. Hence secret number five.
His pace? “Full throttle, always.” Ritter writes about 15,000 emails a year and answers all questions within a few hours, even at night – because he knows: work with the media. Secret number six. “Media is important.” But under pressure. “That’s why it’s important that you play in this game.” For Ritter this means: telling stories. How he learned it from his father.
Almost every portrait about him starts in Altstätten SG in the 400-year-old farmhouse. Postcard Switzerland. Ritter, a devout Catholic, grew up just 600 meters away on the hill as the middle child of a farming family (the mother is from Italy), his brother is a lawyer and his sister is a teacher. Ritter knows the impact of modesty in rural areas. We learn that there is a farmhouse cupboard in the room that Ritter made as an apprentice in 1987. But also that his wife Heidi does most of the work at home. How she irons his shirts for him, packs his suitcase – and almost apologetically says that it would be nice if he had a little more time.
Last secret: have respect, but never be afraid. You have to take politically different people seriously and be honest. “But it’s loud here, people insult you, you don’t have to be afraid.” Otherwise, it is better to go to the school daycare.
Opposing voices are forming
Ritter seems modest – but his statements sometimes speak a different language. Next year he wants to run for chairmanship of the farmers’ association again. But perhaps Ritter’s next calculation soon will be: How much longer? Because the voices saying he’s going too far are getting louder. Kathrin Bertschy, national councilor of the GLP and, together with Ritter, a member of the Committee on Economic Affairs and Taxation, says that since the civil alliance, Ritter – ‘the farmer-industrialist’ – has proven even bolder than before, by openly demanding the pace and to dictate to the bourgeoisie. He even fought against initiatives that would make agronomic sense, such as areas that promote biodiversity. He refuses it because he can. Bertschy and Baumann speak of ‘power intoxication’. “Apparently he just wants to please his friends and please his opponents,” he says.
Bertschy says that dissatisfaction among farmers and in parliament is growing: “Ritter has overstepped his bounds.” Because there is a battle going on in the fields that cannot be won even with the best tactics in Federal Bern: that against climate change. Many farmers have recognized this. Knight too?
Source:Blick
I am Liam Livingstone and I work in a news website. My main job is to write articles for the 24 Instant News. My specialty is covering politics and current affairs, which I’m passionate about. I have worked in this field for more than 5 years now and it’s been an amazing journey. With each passing day, my knowledge increases as well as my experience of the world we live in today.
