The feminist who likes to forget

“What bothers me about the current debate is that only the biological issue matters,” Cédric Wermuth (36) told the “Tages-Anzeiger” in 2018. It was about the seat of the Council of State in Aargau and whether a man or a woman would be sent into the race by the party.

In the 2019 Council of States race, the fronts were exactly the opposite of today. Wermuth stood before a woman in the sun. The verdict of the press was harsh: the “Tages-Anzeiger” wrote that “the SP preaches to women – and educates men”, and de Blick headlined: “Feminist becomes a women’s preventer”.

Would Feri have saved the chair?

Wermuth triumphed in the match against competitor Yvonne Feri (56). On the first vote in October 2019, the current SP co-chair finished in third place and withdrew.

About a month later, national councilor Feri narrowly missed a seat on the board. The SVPler Jean-Pierre Gallati (56) won with only 1593 votes in favour. People wondered if Feri might not have been able to secure the Stöckli chair if she hadn’t had wormwood for the sun.

“Men, forget it!”

Now the same Wermuth is campaigning as party leader to nominate only women to succeed federal councilor Simonetta Sommaruga (62). That is to say: even before the SP politicians could think about a candidacy, Wermuth said to them: Men, forget it!

All this to the chagrin of SP councilor Daniel Jositsch (57). The law professor with ambitions from the Federal Council finds this discriminatory. And he’s not the only one bothered by the debate over the candidates’ X chromosomes.

Jositsch even gets support from some SP women and the so-called reform wing of the party, to which the Zurich resident himself belongs. The wing has submitted a request to the faction that the SP can rely on a ticket with two women and one man.

No understanding for men

Wermuth cannot imagine today that there should not be a purely female ticket in the replacement election for Sommaruga. The SP always has one woman and one man in the state government, and without a women’s card there would be a risk of only two women in the entire Federal Council, the argument goes.

In 2018, from Wermuth’s point of view, it was about very different things than whether a woman or a man should run. About the choice between his progressive wing of the party and the moderate wing of his competitor.

He was not in the government council elections because there was already a man in the government. But it was different at the seat of the Council of State in Aargau. Women were nominated in five of the six previous elections to the Council of States, so a man could do it too.

Can’t a man go now?

Apparently that is no longer the case: Simonetta Sommaruga has been a member of the Federal Council for twelve years. As long as she takes the German-Swiss SP seat. There could also be a man, some could argue with their successor. And why doesn’t the SP line do that? Cédric Wermuth could not be reached for explanation.