Roger Köppel (57) has missed every fifth vote in the National Council for the past three years. According to an analysis by Blick, the SVP politician was absent without excuse on 13 percent of meeting days. With this shortfall, the publisher and editor-in-chief of the “Weltwoche” again took the inglorious first place in the list of the kings of absences in the National Council.
If he initially did not respond to questions from Blick, he now comments in retrospect on his frequent absence. “I am not a truant, but a very committed entrepreneur of a successful company,” says Köppel. And adds that he is “the opposite of those professional politicians who live off the state, gild their mandates and are celebrated by eye”. If he is absent for professional reasons, he neatly logs out “and thus saves the taxpayer’s attendance fees”.
“High absenteeism is annoying”
Köppel’s words reflect what political scientist Claude Longchamp (65) describes as a “certain casualness” of some politicians regarding the duties of office. “The high absenteeism is annoying,” he says.
Admittedly, the situation has improved in recent years. The reason for this, according to Longchamp, is the public pressure on parliamentarians since the media started publishing such rankings. Only since 2007 have all voting results of the National Council been published and voting behavior can be analyzed in detail.
But the fact that some politicians miss nearly 20 percent of the vote is problematic from Longchamp’s point of view. Especially since it is the middle class and the GLP in whose ranks absenteeism is particularly high on average. “Especially those factions that are the most decisive because they are the most procurers,” he says.
Citizens are absent more often than leftists
The Blick evaluation also shows that women are on average significantly less absent from the National Council than their male colleagues. And left-wing National Councilors miss significantly fewer votes than conservatives. The latter can probably be explained by the fact that left-wing politicians are more often career politicians than their middle-class colleagues.
No wonder. National Council Office, other political obligations, plus a job: Longchamp speaks of a “structural overload” of parliamentarians. However, there are also national councilors who, like Köppel, would describe themselves as involved and successful entrepreneurs, but are nevertheless very conscientious parliamentarians. Among the councilors who were absent the least was, for example, Thurgau SVP Landsraadslide Diana Gutjahr (38). Together with her husband, she runs a steel and metal construction company with 80 employees – and missed only five of the 3925 votes. And never shamelessly.