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The Aargau centrist National Councillor Maya Bally wants to become parliamentary group leader.
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Maya Bally wants to become the new president of the centrist parliamentary group in the Swiss parliament and is running against Yvonne Bürgin. The 64-year-old from Aargau refers to her many years of leadership work - but critics still consider her candidacy to be risky.
Maya Bally, National Councillor from the canton of Aargau, is running alongside Yvonne Bürgin for the chairmanship of the centrist parliamentary group in the Federal Parliament.
The post is vacant because the previous leader of the parliamentary group, Philipp Matthias Bregy, is the new party leader. "It would be a pleasure and an honor for me to lead our well-established team," says Bally. In difficult times, the entire strength of the parliamentary group is needed to develop good solutions and represent them as one.
blue News presents a portrait of Bally.
The 64-year-old succeeded Marianne Binder as a member of the National Council in 2023. She previously sat on the Grand Council of the Canton of Aargau for eleven years, where she was a parliamentary group and committee president.
Bally was not always a centrist, but was a member of the BDP after joining in 2012 until 2020. Political associates do not see this as a problem: "The BDP past is part of the identity of the center", says an Aargau politician to blue News.
Bally has also suffered defeats in her political career: she ran unsuccessfully as a member of the cantonal government in 2016 and as a member of the Council of States in 2019. A companion says: "That strengthened her enormously and she learned a lot from it."
Professionally, Bally is an organizational expert and project manager in the IT sector; she is also involved in boards of directors in the education and social sectors. She is married, has a son and lives in Hendschiken.
Before her election to the National Council, Bally named what she sees as the biggest political challenges: "Pension provision, a sustainable energy and environmental policy and an affordable and good healthcare system". This requires "joint solutions, without blinkers and ideology".
Smartvote shows that she holds left-wing positions on socio-political issues: she supports the legalization of cannabis, full equality for homosexual couples and is "rather yes" to a third gender. On the last point, she writes: "At the present time, it is first necessary to analyze the consequences of a third gender, identify the solutions and define the rules, then the gender can be introduced."
She also has a clear position on security policy: she calls for a ban on automatic facial recognition in public spaces, rejects a sugar tax and wants to increase the target number of soldiers in the army to at least 120,000 - with additional resources primarily for cyber defence.
Maya Bally (left) together with former party leader Gerhard Pfister.
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In Parliament, she is a member of the Legal Affairs Committee and has already submitted several initiatives - significantly more than her rival Bürgin.
For example, she has been involved in improving the criminal prosecution of human trafficking, where she has already achieved concrete successes. She is currently fighting for a change in the national financial equalization system: the valuation of owner-occupied homes should be standardized throughout Switzerland, which would mean financial shifts for the cantons.
At 96.5%, her attendance rate is slightly above the parliamentary group average. In 95.9% of all votes, she voted in line with the majority of her parliamentary group.
Those in the center group are not all enthusiastic. Behind closed doors, her candidacy is described as "presumptuous" - she is hardly known and has little experience. Some even suspect that she was only put forward to make the race less easy for Bürgin.
«If there's one thing I can't be accused of, it's a lack of leadership experience.»
Maya Bally
National Councillor
Christina Bachmann-Roth, President of Mitte Frauen Schweiz, disagrees: "Anyone who has spoken to the women knows that both were already giving the matter serious thought and holding talks before the summer vacations." Although she knows Bally better, she appreciates both of them and is pleased that Mitte now has two capable women to choose from: "We have strong women. And I really appreciate that there is a consensus within the party that our party can be stronger if we have both genders at the top."
At the same time, it is regretted that no more experienced politician has been nominated alongside Bürgin and Bally - Isabelle Chassot or Elisabeth Schneider-Schneiter are mentioned, for example.
Maya Bally wants to politicize "without blinkers".
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Bally herself emphasizes that her political background is not a flaw: "I joined the BDP in 2012 as a non-party member. As I am neither Catholic nor very religious, I opted for the BDP, have never regretted this decision and now feel that I have arrived in the center."
In response to the accusation that she represents decidedly left-wing causes, she says: "These issues affect society and cannot be categorized in a left-right scheme. I wonder why the equality of homosexual couples should only be relevant to the left." When it comes to the third gender, she wants to "maintain a certain openness", even if the case is biologically clear: "If someone doesn't want to be addressed as a woman or a man, I can respect that."
«If someone doesn't want to be addressed as a woman or a man, I can respect that.»
Maya Bally
National Councillor
She rejects criticism of her alleged lack of leadership experience: "If there's one thing I can't be accused of, it's a lack of leadership experience. After all, I was parliamentary group president in the Aargau cantonal parliament for four years and president of the parliamentary committee. I also have many years of management experience in the private sector and in associations."
Regarding her language skills, she says: "To date, I have got on well with my French-speaking colleagues. I will certainly have to improve my language skills. The people of Ticino may forgive me for the fact that my knowledge of Italian is not glorious."
