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At the SVP management conference at the weekend, former Federal Councilor Ueli Maurer criticized the party. She was stuck in a dead end, he decided.
SVP National Councilor and “Weltwoche” publisher Roger Köppel (57) does not mince his words – not even when it comes to his own party. At the weekend, former Federal Councilor Ueli Maurer (72) caused a sensation at the traditional management conference in Bad Horn TG: Maurer found the SVP to be in a dead end.
Köppel doesn’t want to let that sit on himself and his SVP – even if he wasn’t there himself. In his show “Weltwoche Daily”, Köppel shoots back. It was a mistake to let Maurer do the big thing at the end of the conference.
«Maurer was never the great strategist»
In the past, at the end of the conference, SVP doyen Christoph Blocher (82) carried out a position determination. “No one inside or outside the party can hold a candle to him,” says Köppel with conviction. And anyway: “Ueli Maurer was never the great strategist.”
Now Maurer has done something that, according to Köppel, one should not do under any circumstances in an election year. He mainly talked about the SVP. “What’s the point of that?” Köppel irritated himself. A party that is primarily concerned with itself is ultimately irrelevant for the citizen, for the voter.
Köppel’s horror show
A former Federal Councilor should talk about Switzerland, about problems and challenges, Köppel thinks, he needs to say what the party should do and where the focus is. It is not his job to “complain about any actual or imagined weaknesses or problems”.
That it could go on like this is a nightmare for Köppel: “If the SVP now also becomes a self-therapeutic psycho-event, then in the end we no longer have a party in Switzerland that has the strength to hold on to the state pillars,” complained he.
SVP in «self-mutilation mode»
For Köppel it is incomprehensible that the SVP has been in “a kind of self-destructive mode” for a year. The fact that he could regularly contribute to this with his criticism does not seem to bother him.
Before the Federal Council elections, he railed against the SVP and former party leader Toni Brunner (48) when he spoke out in favor of a women’s ticket. At the time he criticized that his SVP allowed himself to be drawn into “this decadent chatter about trivial matters”.
Maurer’s appearance was “lost”
Köppel’s judgment is now clear again: Ueli Maurer’s appearance was “rather odd” and “lost”. In an election year, which is also the anniversary year of the federal constitution, one should have talked about the constitution.
Köppel is not alone with this idea. Operation Libero boss Sanija Ameti (31) and middle president Gerhard Pfister (60) distinguished themselves at the start of the year in the Sunday view with constitutional patriotism. Köppel also gets upset about this in his show, probably also because he would like to see the SVP occupy the topic of the constitution. (tom)