After twelve years, Federal Councilor Berset is over: his time between crisis management and scandals

But in retrospect, almost everyone testifies that Berset retained a sense of proportion. Vaud State Councilor Pierre-Yves Maillard, 55, who lost the 2011 Federal Council elections against Berset, says: “He was very courageous in difficult times.”

His big ego may have helped him. The criticism seemed to roll off Berset like water on paint. And Berset has stepped up like no other federal councilor before. It was not without reason that he was considered the social media king among federal council members. In 2018, when he was Federal President for the first time, he was accompanied by a photographer.

The image from New York will never be forgotten: Berset sitting on the sidewalk in front of the UN building, studying files and taking notes. With this nonchalance and worldly refinement he regularly managed to wrap the audience around his finger. In opinion polls he repeatedly emerged as the most popular federal councilor.

Manageable political balance

Berset’s performance record remains manageable. As Minister of the Interior, he was responsible for health policy and pension provisions. Both are eternal construction sites where reforms are hardly successful. He suffered his most serious defeat in September 2017 when he clearly failed with “Pension Provision 2020”.

It would have been a huge achievement to reform the AHV and the pension funds at the same time. A victory that could have given his career at the Federal Council a different, happier direction. After all, Berset passed the retirement age of 65 for women – a Pyrrhic victory from the left’s perspective. The first pension reform in many years.

But after the defeat in 2017 – and apart from the Corona period – Berset changed from designer to administrator and hardly moved anything in his files. Which is definitely his fault. Former national councilor Ruth Humbel (66, center), one of the country’s most important health politicians of the past twenty years, remembers his domineering attitude. “He knew his records and fought for his convictions.” If he took a line on a subject, he could not be discouraged.

Scandals instead of reforms

He was also loyal to the line in terms of personnel: Berset is accused of filling key positions with party friends and thus turning his department into an extension of the SP. He installed former national councilor Stéphane Rossini (60) as head of the Federal Social Insurance Agency and appointed former SP Secretary General Thomas Christen (48) as deputy director of the Federal Office for Public Health. This has earned him the accusation of not being interested in impartial solutions. The argument against this is that he mainly conducted his affairs in the Federal Council.

Instead of reforms, Berset made his name with scandals, especially towards the end of his term – with a former lover, with indiscretions known as Corona leaks, with a deployment of the French Air Force, who exposed Berset as a private pilot in the summer of 2022.

Not quite “Monsieur Parfait”. But anyone who wants to meet such expectations quickly finds themselves in the realm of reality. Alain Berset knows that: “Maybe I’ll do yoga,” he jokingly mused when he announced his resignation. Not a bad idea for some more grounding. Namaste, sir!