“I apologize on behalf of the FDP”

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Elisabeth Kopp († 86) paid a high price. “One too high.” Paul Imhof (75), former clerk of the Zumikon municipality in Zurich, looked back with bitterness on the life of the woman who wrote Swiss history.

Kopp, in office from 1984 to 1989, was the country’s first female federal councilor, an equal rights activist. She died on Good Friday after a long illness. Numerous current and former federal councilors traveled to the memorial service, which took place Wednesday afternoon in their community of Zumikon, including Finance Minister Karin Keller-Sutter (59, FDP), Defense Minister Viola Amherd (60, center) and Kopp’s only surviving colleague from the Federal Council, Adolf Ogi (80, SVP) and Arnold Koller (89, CVP). FDP chairman Thierry Burkart (47) also paid his last respects to the liberal pioneer.

“You couldn’t always count on goodwill yourself”

Kopp was “an extraordinary and courageous person,” said Zurich’s FDP government councilor Carmen Walker Späh, 65. The Liberal Federal Councilor Karin Keller-Sutter described her as “benevolent”. “Unfortunately, she herself could not always count on this kindness.”

The circumstances leading to Kopp’s resignation from the state government were also pervasive when Kopp left. A phone call with her husband was fatal for the first Swiss Federal Councilor. She was accused of breaching professional secrecy – an accusation that was eventually rejected by the highest court. But by then Kopp had already resigned under public pressure.

FDP chairman apologizes

“Perhaps some are here to ask Elisabeth’s forgiveness,” Keller-Sutter said, looking at the circumstances. As a representative of the Bundesrat, she expressed herself rather self-critically. In the most difficult moments of its life, the Federal Council left one of its members alone. She could also count on the women, not even on her party. Kopp’s companion Paul Imhof, also a liberal, appealed to those in attendance: “Wouldn’t now be the right time to stop and say: something like this shouldn’t exist in Switzerland anymore?”

The speeches moved. FDP chairman Burkart apologized after the commemoration for the fact that the party left Kopp alone at the time: “Today I say on behalf of the FDP: sorry.”

The daughter also spoke

There are expressions of regret that only give Kopp’s daughter Brigitt Kuettel (59) a certain satisfaction. She, too, addressed those in attendance at the memorial service, paying tribute to her mother as a woman who followed her beliefs – and who always put family first.

It was her family and the village that prevented Kopp from being broken by the loneliness after she resigned from the government, said partner Imhof. “We were always proud of our Elisabeth Kopp.” She made history not only in Switzerland, “but in our hearts”.

Source:Blick