Does Daniel Jositsch play Mario Fehr?

If you want to achieve something politically, you need majorities. That is no different in the Bundesrat than in parliament. What is needed is the ability to forge alliances across party lines – without alienating one’s own people.

The Zurich SP councilor Daniel Jositsch (57) has not always succeeded in this – and now he is not succeeding at all. “Jositsch is on an ego trip,” says his own group.

After the announced resignation of Simonetta Sommaruga (62), Jositsch wants to make the jump to the Federal Council. Absolute. But his own party leadership stands in his way and wants to rely on a female-only ticket. But Jositsch is not giving up hope.

A candidacy is expected – one way or another

An application for a man on the SP two card has no chance, say the comrades. So far, no such request has been submitted, there is still time until the group meeting on 18 November.

Over the weekend, some women spoke out in the “SonntagsZeitung” for a man on the SP ticket, but the vast majority not only want the majority of women in the SP group to have two candidates on the ticket, the majority of the male faction members also advocated it, party experts assure .

Jositsch, however, reserves the right to go wild if necessary – without the support of his Social Democrats. He wants to appear before the media in Bern on Tuesday and announce his decision. He does not want to reveal what that looks like on request. However, it is generally believed that he will announce his candidacy, anything else would hardly warrant a media conference.

‘Jositsch completely overestimates himself’

But does a wild candidacy make sense? “Jositsch completely overestimates himself,” said a bourgeois party leader. A wild candidacy would be a “hara-kiri action” that would cause permanent damage to the Zurich resident.

Finally, the parties agree that someone will be chosen from the official SP ticket. So said SVP party chairman Marco Chiesa (48) in the SRF TV “Arena”. And that is also signaled by the other party leadership. In concrete terms, this means that Jositsch will clearly fail in Parliament.

Central President Gerhard Pfister (60) also does not doubt this view. On Twitter he emphasizes that he thinks Jositsch’s unofficial candidacy has absolutely no chance.

In the footsteps of Mario Fehr

Moreover, if Jositsch were to compete as Wilder, it would be a rift with his own party. A middle-class party strategist says she can hardly nominate him as a member of the Council of States. This would entail the risk that he, like the Zurich government councilor Mario Fehr (64), would have to run for office in the future without the support of the SP. Fehr is now partyless, but belonged to the SP until June 2021.

Further parallels can be drawn between the two lawyers Jositsch and Fehr: both were always attributed to the right-wing fringe of the party. And for both of them—probably precisely for that reason—re-election was always an obvious thing to do. In addition, Jositsch inherited Fehr as president of KV Switzerland.

Although Jositsch Fehr also criticized him from time to time for distancing himself from him, for example in an interview with the “Tages-Anzeiger” after he left the party or in the Frontex vote, the two often politicized along similar lines.

When asked about the approaching break with his own party, Jositsch does not want to say anything. He refers only to the announced application to allow candidatures of both sexes. At his press conference on Tuesday, however, he will finally have to show his colors. And probably put everything on one card.