Published on January 21, 2025 at 6:38 p.m. / Modified on January 21, 2025 at 8:11 p.m.
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The recipe for becoming a federal councilor? It obviously has several ingredients. But one of them stood out in the discussions, election after election: to have the best chances, you must be a federal parliamentarian. Because sitting in Berne provides a leading network and allows you to be known by your peers, these “major voters” who decide who can sit in the government.
Like any unwritten rule, this has had exceptions in recent history: the socialist Micheline Calmy-Rey, the Christian Democrat Ruth Metzler, the Grisonne Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf and, to a certain extent, the current socialist minister Beat Jans. The latter, even if he had officiated for years under the federal dome, was no longer there at the time of his election at the end of 2023, since he had joined the government of his half-canton of Basel-City.
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