Will Amherd’s decision push Cassis towards the exit?

Viola Amherd will leave her post as federal councilor in March. According to political scientist Sarah Bütikofer, the short term puts the center party under pressure – and will perhaps force Ignazio Cassis to act.

Defense Minister Viola Amherd announced her departure from the Federal Council on Wednesday. She has lived through “many campaigns and actually got through them well,” the 62-year-old said at a press conference in Bern.

Political circles have long speculated about Amherd’s imminent resignation. The decision to withdraw in the spring is nevertheless surprising. In recent years, federal councilors generally resigned towards the end of the year and replacement elections took place most of the time during the winter session in December. Today, the vote on Amherd’s succession will take place during the spring session, March 3-21.

The brevity of this resignation also surprises Sarah Bütikofer, political scientist and project partner at the polling institute Sotomo: “The center must now find a successor very quickly,” she explains to blue News.

“Each party also has a vice-presidency”

Especially since Gerhard Pfister, who is still believed to have ambitions for the Federal Council, announced just a week ago that he would only remain president of the centrist party until the summer.

Sarah Bütikofer finds it “interesting” that the party president announced his departure relatively early and that the federal councilor then resigned a week later. “One can certainly speculate as to whether Amherd wanted, through his timing, to prevent someone in particular from succeeding him,” explains the political scientist.

Amherd herself is reassuring during the press conference: “Each party also has a vice-presidency”. Behind his decision to step down in the spring, Amherd assures that there is no intention to influence the succession in any way.

There is no shortage of candidates from the center

She responded to a question from a journalist that she had informed Gerhard Pfister just before the public announcement of his resignation. Asked if she had a successor of choice, she replied: “I am as happy as a fish in water.”

In itself, Bütikofer does not want to rule out an election of Pfister to the Federal Council: “But in this case, the succession to the party presidency would absolutely have to be settled sooner.”

The center has many potential candidates for the Council of States and the National Council. Among the female politicians profiled, Isabelle Chassot has certainly already refused, but several male parliamentarians should also consider a candidacy: for example the state councilors Benedikt Würth (Saint-Gall) and Pirmin Bischof (Solothurn) or the national councilors Martin Candinas (Graubünden). ) and Philipp Matthias Bregy (Valais).

The uncertain question of gender

With Viola Amherd, one of the three women currently in the Federal Council is stepping down. A replacement therefore seems obvious so as not to reinforce the imbalance in the representation of the sexes.

But we cannot ask the center to assume this responsibility: “The center has for a long time already occupied its only seat in the Federal Council with a woman, before Amherd, it was Doris Leuthard,” explains Bütikofer. For this vacancy, there would therefore be good arguments in favor of the election of a man, in particular as a sign addressed to the next generation of the party and to the base.

“If the successor were a man, the party concerned would be forced to present a replacement when the Federal Council next leaves,” adds Bütikofer.

Will Cassis also retire soon?

It is quite possible that this discussion will soon become a subject of discussion within the PLR. Among Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis too, rumors of an imminent resignation are persistent. With Amherd’s decision, the PLR ​​could find itself under pressure: “It would certainly be easier for the PLR ​​to defend its second seat in the Federal Council if its seat was to be filled at the same time as that of the center,” explains Bütikofer.

But so that a possible election to replace Cassis can also take place in March, the Ticino resident would have to decide very quickly about his future. This would be possible, because Bütikofer emphasizes that “each federal councilor has the right to resign at short notice, without informing anyone beforehand”.