Government elections BS FDP and Greens fight for a return to the Basel government

In addition to the incumbents, Eva Biland (FDP), Oliver Bolliger (Basta), Anina Ineichen (Greens) and Stefan Suter (SVP) are running for one of the seven seats on the Basel government council. However, the four candidates will have outsider chances at best in the elections on October 20.

In contrast to the recent elections to replace Beat Jans (SP), who has been appointed President of the cantonal government, the election campaign for the overall renewal of the executive has so far been rather lacklustre.

In April, Mustafa Atici (SP) and Luca Urgese (FDP), two established political personalities from two camps, faced each other. Now there are four candidates who are likely to have a hard time against the incumbents, who are all running again.

The FDP has fielded Eva Biland, the party vice-president, a former municipal councillor from the village of Bettingen with its 1300 inhabitants who is little known at cantonal level. The SVP is backing the politically moderate party outsider Stefan Suter for the second time. And against the backdrop of the former Green-Alternative Alliance running separately, the members of the Grand Council Oliver Bolliger and Anina Ineichen will be competing for votes.

The four candidates at a glance:

Eva Biland (FDP)

At the FDP party conference in June, 52-year-old doctor Eva Biland was surprisingly chosen as a candidate for the cantonal government against the better-known former member of the Grand Council Christian Egeler. This is reminiscent of the by-election in 2019, when the FDP fielded Nadine Gautschi, another little-known FDP candidate at the time, against Eva Herzog. She had no chance against the popular SP candidate Tanja Soland.

The FDP's aim is to win back the seat it lost in the Basel government four years ago.

Biland stands for classic liberal positions, as she says of herself. "My basic concern is to give the needs of the business community more weight in the executive again," she told the Keystone-SDA news agency.

In various media, Biland has been assigned to the right wing of the FDP. First and foremost in "bz Basel", which ranked Biland further to the right politically than the SVP candidate, Stefan Suter, in a comparison of Smartspider profiles. This was particularly evident in the categories of migration and law and order, where Biland's Smartspider graph showed much clearer swings than that of the SVP candidate.

Biland herself does not agree with the categorization as a right-wing politician. "I stand for conservative values, but I am 100 percent liberal," she said.

Stefan Suter (SVP)

Stefan Suter is standing for election to the cantonal council for the second time since 2020. Four years ago, he came tenth among the candidates with around 12,800 votes - in view of the fact that the SVP was running alone at the time, it was considered a respectable success. Now the party, and with it the prominent lawyer, has been readmitted to the conservative alliance, which could bring him additional votes.

In the 2020 elections to the Grand Council, Suter immediately took the top spot on the SVP list for the Kleinbasel constituency. In 2022, he also made it onto the Riehen municipal council.

Apart from a brief period as President of the Finance Committee, Suter remained largely invisible as a member of the cantonal parliament. Apart from a handful of interpellations, he did not submit any political initiatives. And he was hardly ever to be found at the lectern in the chamber either.

He does, however, feel "very comfortable" as a parliamentarian, he admits. He also sees himself in the right place in the SVP. "I deliberately chose the SVP because this party stands up for Switzerland's independence, neutrality and economic friendliness," says Suter. However, there is nothing to be heard from him about the usual SVP buzzwords "asylum chaos" and "immigration stop".

Oliver Bolliger (Basta)

In contrast to Suter, the 54-year-old social worker and managing director of the Basel Housing Aid Foundation is fully in line with the left-wing party Basta, for which he campaigned in the cantonal elections.

In the Grand Council, of which he has been a member for over seven years, he has been very active as a social politician with many initiatives. Among other things, he initiated an increase in the asset allowance for social welfare during the coronavirus period with a motion in the Council - and managed to ensure that this regulation was maintained even after the pandemic with another motion.

He is also highly regarded across party lines as President of the Health and Social Affairs Committee.

"For me, tackling the causes of poverty and new social security measures are very important," says Bolliger. Climate measures should not take precedence over these demands.

Bolliger is thus addressing the differences with his fellow Green Party candidate Anina Ineichen. The Green Party has broken off its former parliamentary group and electoral alliance with Basta, meaning that the parties will run separately with one candidate each in their bid to regain the red-green majority in government that they lost four years ago, thus taking votes away from the left of the SP.

Anina Ineichen (Greens)

The 38-year-old lawyer Anina Ineichen - who works in the municipal administration of Arlesheim - sees no disadvantage in running separately for government councillor and government president. The five-way ticket with the SP and Basta increases the chances of regaining a majority for climate and social issues in the seven-member government, she writes at the request of Keystone-SDA.

Ineichen became a member of the Grand Council three years ago. There, she sees herself as someone who "struggles to find the best solutions for the canton and control the government" across party lines.

This applies to her work in the Finance Committee, among other things, but also in the plenary session. She cites her successful motion to create a climate fund as an outstanding achievement. This would not only keep up the pressure to implement climate protection measures, but also provide funding for their implementation.