Why we can all be thankful to her

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“When you are convinced of your cause, you feel strength and peace within yourself.” Elisabeth Kopp was quoted with this phrase in a portrait in December 1984.

That strength and composure was on display when she made Swiss history two months earlier, on October 2, 1984. On that day, she was the first woman elected to the state government. She appeared before the United Federal Assembly in the National Council Chamber and said:

“My personal success has less to do with my election as the first woman to the Federal Council; Rather, I see it as a recognition of the political achievements of all women at the most diverse levels of our state.”

We mourn the loss of the first female federal councilor in Switzerland and thus a pioneer. And we mourn Elisabeth Kopp as a woman and as a person.

The aforementioned 1984 portrait was titled “Unshakeable Will”. Elisabeth Kopp has demonstrated this will time and time again, even in the most adverse times imaginable. But she was more than that: she was a politician with heart and soul, with conviction and commitment.

Her student days were politically formative. After the Hungarian uprising, she took care of refugees, for which she interrupted her law studies. She later said it was her “anti-authoritarian vaccination.” This vaccine lasted a lifetime.

She was also a lively young woman. She proved that not only as a figure skater! After winning the vote on a new swimming pool as a member of the Zumikon Community Council in the 1970s against some prominent opposition, she reportedly did a summarily handstand on the diving board when the pool opened.

It was not until much later that I got to know Elisabeth Kopp personally. It connects as you face each other as the only two liberal women ever elected to the Federal Council.

But she had been in my life long before that. As a woman, as a politician, as a liberal. She didn’t want to see herself as a role model. But whether she wanted it or not, she was an important role model for many women interested in politics.

In 1974 she was the first female mayor in German-speaking Switzerland, became the first female member of the Zurich Education Council, national councilor and finally the first female federal councilor in Switzerland. She was, of course, aware that she was a pioneer. As the first Federal Council member, she wanted to pave the way for other women in politics, in the Federal Council. She took on that responsibility.

And she has – I can not put it differently – “toiled” for it. Not only was she ambitious, she was skillful, thorough, precise – and she was and always remained independent. I choose this word very deliberately. This autonomy was too often denied to her. And wrongly.

As a woman, as a wife, as a middle-class citizen, people didn’t really believe that she was really independent and could think for herself. The phone call to her husband, which eventually led to her firing, seemed to prove her critics right. And yet she was just that: independent. Also uncomfortable. She was concerned about the settings. She was, in the best sense, a liberal.

Elisabeth Kopp did not fit the schedule. She became a federal councilor at a time when her husband could still have forbade her. According to the law.

The revision of this law, the marriage law, was one of their most important political achievements. She was still a member of the National Council when she strongly advocated this revision in parliament in 1983. She did it with an analytical mind and liberal conviction. She responded to criticism that the law was too individualistic and that the legislature had failed to create a clear picture of marriage, saying: “It cannot be the job of the legislature to give spouses a to give a new image of marriage and to enshrine this in law. It is up to the spouses to decide how they want to shape their marriage. That’s exactly what the new law does: it gives spouses the freedom to organize their marriage.”

As a member of the Federal Council and responsible minister, she then fought for a yes at the ballot box. Tireless and successful. In September 1985, the new marriage law passed with almost 55 percent of the vote.

Incidentally, she won on one point at her first meeting of the Bundesrat: she did not want to be referred to as “Mrs Bundesrat”, as the wives of the Bundesrat, as suggested by her colleagues, but “Mrs Bundesrat”, as she later liked to say.

We can never thank Elisabeth Kopp enough for taking on the responsibility then, on October 2, 1984, as the first “Federal Councilor”.

We can also thank her for not letting herself be destroyed. Though it took far too long for her to be rehabilitated not only legally, but also politically and socially.

Personally, as a liberal woman, I am grateful to her. My thoughts were with her when I was elected to the Federal Council in 2018. It was a special honor for me to be able to take over your legacy after 30 years, in the Federal Council and in the Federal Public Service Justice and Police.

But not only politicians can thank Elisabeth Kopp for the preparatory work she has done. Everyone can thank her. For their commitment to society, for their service to our country.

I would like to express my sincere condolences to all who mourn the loss of Elisabeth Kopp and who must say goodbye to her. I wish her family and loved ones a lot of strength.

Source:Blick