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Done! Albert Rösti takes office on January 1st. The first 100 days count as a training period.
Basel bidder SP National Councilor Eric Nussbaumer (62) is upset. “Doesn’t Albert Rösti really know anything better than traveling to a cantonal election campaign and to ‘big election events’ in the first 100 days of his Concordance Federal Council days?” he writes on Twitter. For Nussbaumer, this is nothing less than a “fail” – a mistake by the neo-magistrate.
The appearance of the newly minted SVP Federal Councilor Albert Rösti (55) at the election event on January 18 of the bourgeois alliance in the Basel area is apparently primarily intended to benefit his party colleague Sandra Sollberger (49).
Alongside the previous two, Anton Lauber (61, center) and Monica Gwind (59, FDP), the SVP national councilor will be running for government elections for the first time on February 12. Any help is welcome, especially from such a prominent side.
“He harms the institution”
This does not go down well in the left camp. «In the first 100 days of office of a Federal Councilor, no public appearances are planned. That’s an unwritten law, »says Nussbaumer to Blick. An appearance is inappropriate, especially for an explicit election campaign. This initial phase was intended to familiarize oneself with his new position. “In the middle of the biggest energy crisis in decades, Rösti would have enough to do.”
If Albert Rösti had already agreed to take part in the election event before he was elected to the Federal Council, then he should cancel now, according to SP politician Nussbaumer. “But if he only agreed after his election, he obviously didn’t understand the office. It harms the institution.”
Rösti himself could not be reached for comment.
Manual expects “due restraint”
However, there is nothing to be found in the Aide-mémoire, the handbook for members of the Federal Council, of any particular restraint during the first 100 days in office. The members of the Federal Council are free to take part in cantonal or regional events of their own party.
However, if such events take place less than two months before cantonal elections or votes, the members of the government are only allowed to speak on federal votes. “Due restraint” with party political activities is expected above all before federal elections and votes.
“Federal councilors also have a party-political background”
On the bourgeois side, people in the Basel area are also much more relaxed: “I expect that members of the Federal Council uphold the principle of collegiality in government business,” says Central National Councilor Elisabeth Schneider-Schneiter (58). “But they all have a partisan background.”
According to Schneider-Schneiter, if Albert Rösti finds time to travel to the Basel area, he shouldn’t be denied it. “If the new SP Federal Councilor Elisabeth Baume-Schneider had come, the left would probably not have blamed her.” (dba)