Who gets the ticket? Who has the best chance? Who will the Federal Assembly elect for the state government on December 7? The future successors of Simonetta Sommaruga (62) and Ueli Maurer (71) present themselves on the political stage.
While the Polish parties SP and SVP happily manage the show run of their candidates, the liberals are condemned to the backstage area. There they eagerly forge business games for Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis (61), their problem child in the government. Because some in the FDP see the upcoming divisional division as an opportunity: getting out of the foreign division with Cassis is their mission.
The demolition expert of Brussels
The Ticinese resident consistently occupies one of the lowest places in government popularity polls. Some concerned party friends consider him a burnout, a politically stranded individual who can only be saved before the election year by switching wards.
There are several scenarios for the success of such an operation. A common one: If Alain Berset (50) were to give up the interior department, the specialist from Montagnola TI would be the natural health minister. Or Cassis as Minister of Infrastructure? This case could arise if a majority in the committee wants to prevent a uvek in the hands of the SVP. And only she knows how satisfied the middle representative Viola Amherd (60) is at the top of the VBS.
Anyway, according to SonntagsBlick information, some FDP faction members were already holding talks with their magistrates. Of course, nobody wants to be called by name. The party leadership remains inconspicuous when asked and one MP thinks it more important that popular Justice Minister Karin Keller-Sutter (58) tries the finance department, a cross-departmental department and room for maneuver for middle-class budget policy.
In fairness, it should be mentioned that Cassis has also experienced some brilliant moments during his tenure thus far. In 2017, as head of the EDA, he got off to a brilliant start with his unforgettable sentence about the “reset button” to be pressed. Finally someone seemed to be able to solve the European political blockade of predecessor Didier Burkhalter (62).
After the burial of the framework agreement with the EU in 2021, Cassis could temporarily count on a fan base, ranging from the right-wing conservative camp to the trade union environment. Suddenly what was otherwise considered whimsical mutated into the famous explosives master of Brussels, into the conqueror of the Eurocratic monster, into the conqueror of Mordor.
Rivalry with Keller-Sutter
Last year he was allowed to surround himself with global political flair in Geneva as hosts of Vladimir Putin (70) and Joe Biden (79) and three weeks ago during his state visit to Kiev.
But the enemy was always lurking. From the beginning. Shortly after his election to the government, then-SP boss and Berset friend Christian Levrat (52) insulted him as an “intern” – the accusation, incidentally, fell bitterly back on Levrat last year when he became post president and had to jump professionally into cold water and asked in vain for a “training effort” of 12,000 francs.
However, the real Pharisees are in the Federal Council room with Cassis. poisonous arrows and needlesticks everywhere; the whole parliament building gossiped about the rivalry with party friend Keller-Sutter in European politics.
However, the most violent attacks came from the left, at least according to those around the secretary of state. The Social Democrats Berset and Sommaruga, in particular, are said to have attacked and ultimately failed at Cassis’ latest prestige project, the Neutrality Report.
Do SP people want to insert blank?
The strategy makes sense from a left-wing perspective: polls suggest that the FDP could overtake the SP in the upcoming national elections, and the Greens are hot on their heels. So Cassis must be weakened. The liberal is the breaking point of the bourgeois bloc.
This includes the latest Bernese rumor, according to which the SP group circulates the idea of doing nothing if Cassis is re-elected. However, the inhibitions before a federal councilor is voted out are immense.
Ultimately, the division of departments is the sole responsibility of the members of the government, who decide completely independently. A national councilor points out that the cards would be shaken overnight if there were a breakthrough with the EU after the last six rounds of talks with Brussels.
Federal councilors are human too. And people, it is said, are like shopping bags: you don’t look in them.