Sarah Regez and the right-wing extremists: SVP politician attended secret meetings with Martin Sellner

“The student who does not want to change gender” was the title of a sympathetic Regez portrait in the “SonntagsZeitung” in 2022. It was the starting signal for a meteoric rise – from a simple member of Sissach BL to an almost national councilor and head strategy for the Young SVP.

Meeting with right-wing radicals

Regez is offensive. With her radical slogans against immigrants and the ‘woke culture’, she represents a new SVP generation that is currently causing controversy within the party. And it sparked a heated controversy over the relationship between the SVP’s descendants and right-wing extremists.

At the height of this debate, research by Blick now shows: Sarah Regez took part – in a small circle – in a conspiratorial meeting with the Austrian Identitarian leader Martin Sellner (35). Only the hard core of the right-wing scene was aware of the event. There were mainly members of the militant group Junge Tat, which is controlled by the Swiss Intelligence Service (NDB).

The SVP and the Junge Tat

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Grandma advises against voting for granddaughter (29).

A young act committed

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After the ‘Young Tat’ scandal

Wegenin resigns as SVP president of Winterthur

Election campaign affair involving Junge Tat

The young SVP also hired the right-wing extremist boss

Historian according to the Glarner judgment

That’s how widespread right-wing extremism is in Switzerland

The organizers were aware of the explosiveness of the meeting and issued a strict photo ban. Regez also felt unnoticed, even though she was already in the media: just two weeks earlier, the SVP Baselland had placed her on the main list for the National Council elections.

At the event in the canton of Zurich, Sellner gave a lecture about what he calls ‘remigration’, the mass deportation of people with a migrant background that he promoted. Coincidence or not: Sarah Regez is the only established SVP politician who openly uses the fighting term.

Sellner was able to deliver his lecture undisturbed. It was completely different two weeks ago, when he was taken away by the police during a Junge Tat event in Tegerfelden AG. Germany, Great Britain and the US are now refusing entry to the right-wing extremist.

On the waiting list for the National Council

Sarah Regez’s brash political style has not affected her popularity so far. In early October, her grandmother even warned her granddaughter in an open letter: “The solutions you stand for are terrible for me: destruction of those who think differently, violence, war. Your opponents are your enemies.”

Three weeks later, Regez surprisingly came third in the federal elections with 22,436 votes, behind two previous candidates. If one of the two resigns, the bidder from Basel will move on to the National Council.

Regez and the Young SVP remain silent

How far to the right is the whiz kid from Sissach? And how close are your contacts in the right-wing extremist environment? Regez did not respond to calls or emails from Blick all week. Their silence has a system: during an online crisis meeting on Wednesday, Young SVP leader Nils Fiechter muzzled his party colleagues: “Anyone who distances themselves loses.” Several cantonal parties had demanded that the party leadership distance itself from Junge Tat.

Last weekend the ‘NZZ am Sonntag’ headline read: ‘The new radical power couple at the head of the Young SVP: Nils Fiechter and Sarah Regez want to radicalize the Young Party.’ Fiechter, who recently became chairman of the Young SVP and also has a private relationship with Regez, declined to comment to Blick. When he was still head of strategy in 2023, messages from the leaders of the Junge Tat on the short message service X were repeatedly liked on the official account of the Junge SVP Switzerland.

The current vice-chairman Mattia Mettler also prefers to shoot journalists and party members rather than right-wing extremists. When Blick announced last year that the leader of the Junge Tat was a member of the Junge SVP Thurgau and that the latter subsequently distanced himself from the group, he responded mockingly to X: “Congratulations to Thurgau!” Allowing yourself to be upset by a Blick journalist is “really rarely awkward”. And further: “The shift to the right in this country will not happen.”

An internal chat that the “NZZ am Sonntag” published a week ago also shows how close parts of the party are to Junge Tat. In it, Ramon Hug, head of the Junge SVP Aargau, writes: “We must be honest and recognize that the Junge Tat covers exactly the same content as we do.” And further: “Distancing yourself from it is the same as distancing yourself from our own program.”

The Young SVP Aargau also shows solidarity with Martin Sellner

It is no coincidence that the young people of SVP Aargau showed solidarity with Martin Sellner. After the Austrian right-wing extremist was taken away by the police in Tegerfelden, the canton department wrote on X: “A black day for our democracy and freedom of expression!” and added in capital letters: “Solidarity with Martin Sellner.” Shortly afterwards, party colleagues called on Aargau President Hug to resign.

Things are boiling in the young party. The fact that strategy chief Sarah Regez took part in a right-wing extremist meeting with Martin Sellner is likely to further widen the divide between moderate and radical forces. How long can the party leaders continue to hide?

Regez last commented on her controversial views three weeks ago. She told the Online Reports portal: “I’m not that extreme, I follow the party line.”