Elected in December 2018 to the Federal Council with 154 votes, Saint-Welsh Karin Keller Sutter (PLR) became President of the Confederation this Wednesday for the first time. Before the Federal Assembly, its result this time was 168 votes out of 203 valid ballots. For the head of federal finances, this is a result below the average of the last ten years of the presidential election which is 178 votes.
In the process, the Federal Assembly comfortably elected Guy Parmelin (UDC) as vice-president with 196 votes out of 219 valid ballots. Note that the Vaudois has already been president of the Confederation in 2021.
After Ruth Dreifuss in 1999, Micheline Calmy-Rey (2007 and 2011), Doris Leuthard (2010 and 2017), Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf (2012), Simonetta Sommaruga (2015 and 2020) and Viola Amherd (2024), this is the seventh woman to access this position and the first from the PLR. Born on December 22, 1963, she is 60 years old. Married for ten years to the director of health services for the city of Zurich, she has no children.
The president will chair the meetings of the Federal Council from January 1, 2025. She has the status of first among equalshis vote counts double in the event of a tie, but has no authority over his colleagues who are his equals.
As of January 1, 2019, Karin Keller-Sutter took over as head of the Federal Department of Justice and Police. She had to manage the arrival of refugees from Ukraine, for whom she offered protection status, S status, which is still in force. In 2023, she took over the Federal Department of Finance from Ueli Maurer. But, the following March, it was confronted with the Credit Suisse crisis and its takeover by UBS.
Nicknamed KKS, Karin Keller-Sutter is considered a woman of convictions in federal Bern. The “NZZ” declined its anagram by “keiner kann stoppen”, which means that no one can stop it. No one, except the army perhaps, which managed to obtain additional resources (530 million for next year) while federal finances must return to balance in the coming years.
“Crises and wars abroad, political upheavals and complex financial situations in Switzerland: in this stimulating context, the PLR wishes Karin Keller-Sutter a successful presidential year for the good of the Swiss population,” her party communicated this Wednesday .
